‘Someone’ Watches Over Human Spirit

Hostages held in Lebanon in the late 1980s were very much in the public’s consciousness when “Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” first captivated New York audiences in 1992.

While that crisis is now mercifully over, Frank McGuinness’ taut and provocative play about the hostages’ ordeal still works because the three prisoners in it could be any three dissimilar men in a lifeboat or a battlefield trench, yoked by the common realization that they need each other to survive.

The production at North Coast Repertory Theatre reminds us that it’s a play about the triumph of human spirit over cultural and even emotional differences. At the same time, it’s a celebration of inner resources--dignity, imagination and love--that the most merciless oppressors can’t strip away.

Olive Blakistone, artistic director of the theater, directs here with overall strong results.

Ron Choularton anchors the play with a dark, fast-talking performance as the feisty Irish journalist, Edward, whose chief coping mechanism is argument--which keeps his fellow prisoners angry but alert amid the oppressive boredom of their bare, windowless cell.

Edward also is a master of fantasy, expertly pushing the others through the imaginative exercises of “writing” letters, “shooting movies,” replaying horse races and having raucous cocktail parties.

Punit Auerbacher conveys the terror of Michael, the frail British professor of Middle and Old English, nabbed on the way to market to buy pears. In the best-written arc of the characterizations, he shows how his character finds unexpected strength from his gruesome ordeal.

*

In contrast, Douglas Reger struggles in the more enigmatic and problematic role of Adam, the American doctor held captive the longest. Reger fails to find the heart of the conflicted superachiever who, like a caged lion, rages to find himself locked in a situation in which he’s powerless. Then he finds peace in an unexpected way.

Resident set designer Marty Burnett achieves a sense of oppressive enclosure with minimal fuss. Kathryn Gould’s costumes--the uniform T-shirts and shorts--emphasize that this is not a designer’s play but an actor’s showcase. The three performers use all the tricks in their imaginative arsenals to keep their audience’s attention even as their characters try to maintain their own interest in survival.

For the most part they succeed. And, in the process, remind us of the long view that all people are, ultimately, linked together in a common cell. Our survival ultimately may depend, in the words of the Gershwin song that inspired the play’s title, on each of us finding “someone to watch over me.”

* “Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me,” North Coast Repertory Theatre, Solana Beach. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 18. $14-$16. (619) 481-1055. Running time: 2 hours, 31 minutes.

Ron Choularton: Edward

Douglas Reger: Adam

Punit Auerbacher: Michael

A North Coast Repertory Theatre production of a play by Frank McGuinness. Directed by Olive Blakistone. Sets: Marty Burnett. Lights: Jennifer Tyrer. Sound: Marvin Read. Costumes: Kathryn Gould. Stage manager: Lesley Fitzpatrick.