Campaign Drama Gets a No Vote

An involved if not totally involving web of private dramas and public affairs, “Right Lies” by Paul Guay and Marcus Cootsona is an interesting case of a play sounding far more compelling on paper than it actually plays out--at least under Lewis Hunter’s direction in the first full production of the Vagabond Players at the Gene Bua Acting for Life Theatre.

Considering it’s the first play in some time about politicians running for office--especially timely in this presidential primary season--and tackles such disparate and weighty themes as the burdens political wives must bear, the difference between running by poll and running by conviction, and what it means to be a libertarian in government, it sounds special.

Yet, every idea that Guay and Cootsona find rightly interesting, they manage to dramatize so the air comes out of the balloon. What we’re left with after a three-hour, three-act playing time is more enervating than thrilling.

Above all, the playwrights--who share an unusual “story” credit with Craig Lachman--are interested in characters’ shifting identities. For example, California Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Arthur (Kevin Patrick Wright, who sometimes uncannily resembles a younger Harrison Ford) begins as an intellectual lightweight seemingly under the sway of his libertarian advisor and speech writer Alec (Michael Homeier) and ends up revealing an evil inner core by thoroughly manipulating Alec.

That’s not all, as Virginia (Jacee Jule), brought on to run Chris’ ad campaign and ultimately becoming his wife, is up for some final--and a bit too convenient--manipulations of her own.

The course of events, is too contrived by half. We’re to believe that Alec, who’s more of a true believer than an amoral political mastermind, would sacrifice his own love for Virginia by staging a scene in which she catches him cheating with a campaign secretary just weeks before their marriage, thus sending her into the arms of Chris, who supposedly needs a wife to get elected.

This assumes both superhuman qualities for Alec as well as the disproved notion that a California governor must be married. (Or have we all forgotten Jerry Brown?)

It also implies that attractive Virginia has an extremely limited choice of men.

This only begins the welter of somewhat unexamined ideas circulating around a play that sometimes stops dead in its tracks for arid, false-sounding discussions about libertarian philosophy and characters announcing their intent and subtext rather than talking like real people.

When it comes time for bedroom talk in Act II, “Right Lies” finds its voice and psychological intent, but when time for campaigning in Acts I and III, it all rings fairly false.

Campaign offices are settings of barely controlled frenzy in which folks are running to and fro (NBC’s “The West Wing,” though set in the White House, has this down pat).

The feeling of the text and Hunter’s staging is that of a sedate corporate branch office.

Homeier does fine, subtle work as the conflicted Alec, bringing forth all of the painful personal history he’s had with Chris and actually putting some oomph into his impossible theoretical speeches.

Wright struggles with his lines early on, but settles into the role of a politician who grows as comfortable changing identities as changing suits.

As the manipulated Virginia, Jule only begins to explore the sadness and injustices this woman has to endure.

Still, with some rethinking, refining and a much quicker pace (the line readings on opening weekend were glacial), this new company may have a real play on its hands.

BE THERE

“Right Lies,” Gene Bua Acting for Life Theatre, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Indefinitely. $15. (818) 980-8843. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes.