Playwright Mines Past in ‘Rheumatic’

A 10-year-old boy’s imagination can soar, especially when he’s left at home alone, in bed. Kestutis Nakas re-creates that period of his life in “Rheumatic Fever: A Love Story,” a solo performance seen over the weekend at Highways.

Nakas, the son of Lithuanian emigres who settled in Mesa, a suburb southeast of Phoenix, was 10 when President Kennedy was shot. In “Rheumatic Fever,” he hears the news from his mother over the phone; he was home because of the first symptoms of a bout with rheumatic fever that would keep him in bed, and away from his friends at parochial school, for much of that winter.

The boy concocts a grand scenario in which Kennedy has secretly escaped his assassins and uses the Nakas home as a place to hide. Represented by a dime-store bust of JFK, “Kennedy” gradually evolves from a revered Catholic leader into a domineering little dictator.

In another wing of his fantasies, the boy’s thoughts of heroically leading the liberation of Lithuania transform into a plan to personally turn in his parents to Khrushchev--after all, they wouldn’t buy him a Beatles wig. Not surprisingly, little Kestutis also uses the time in bed to discover masturbation--and to feel guilty about it.

Nakas wears pajamas, occasionally allowing his middle-aged belly to protrude, adding to the humor. He dons shades and picks up an electric guitar for sporadic attempts to sing about his feelings. The images in his text are crisp and plain, only occasionally employing adult or anachronistic references. Nakas’ delivery is in sync with that style, though he uses a brusque JFK accent when he speaks for Kennedy. At slightly more than an hour, it’s an amusing little memoir.