Stage Review : A Literary ‘Hemingway’ Tells of Egoism, Hypocrisy

In a handsome revival, “The Hemingway/Dos Passos Wars” ironically depicts the toll of ideological conformity among prominent symbols of independence and rebellion--the left-wing intellectuals and writers of the 1930s.

Ben Pleasants’ literate cautionary drama uses the disintegrating friendship between John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway as a study in egoism and hypocrisy set against the moral litmus test of the Spanish Civil War. Both writers began on the same side--supporting the revolt against Franco’s fascists--but the murderous tactics of Soviet-backed guerrillas led Dos Passos to break with the lock-step endorsements of his leftist colleagues, like clotheshorse Lillian Hellman (Melissa Jones).

The superb Steve Andrews plays the conflicted Dos Passos. His journalistic objectivity forces painful recognitions, helped along by Al Dinneen in multiple roles.

Charles Klausmeyer’s Hemingway is every inch a “bad boy artist who never grew up.” Loyalty to friends or causes means little to him, compared to gratification or even a good story. Betraying his long-suffering wife (Stephanie Venditto and Ursula Burton alternate) with an ambitious journalist (Kira Dahlgren), he even tries to seduce Dos Passos’ wife (Amy Zorek, who also directed). But this furtive, craven, smaller-than-life portrait misses any sense of the immense experiential appetites that compensated for Hemingway’s excesses.

Pleasants takes some lazy shortcuts in reducing his leftists to self-indulgent dilettantes, rather than exploring their end-justifies-the-means rationalizations. Hemingway, Hellman & Co. may have been mistaken, but they weren’t stupid.

BE THERE

“The Hemingway/Dos Passos Wars,” Hollywood Court Theatre, United Methodist Church, 6817 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 19. $15. (310) 440-3447. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.