"The War Party' at InterAct Theatre

Even after thinking about the election for months, I spent an agonizing ten minutes in the voting booth on November 4. As a member of a third party, I found it difficult to choose. I’m too much of a fiscal conservative and individualist to buy into either O’Socialism or Obamania, but my liberal social views precluded me from choosing McPalin. On the other hand, I hate the notion that I’m “wasting” my vote.

A few hours after voting, I saw InterAct’s current production of Vincent Delaney’s The War Party. This seemed appropriate, since my voting dilemma earlier that day enabled me to implicitly understand the dilemma faced by the play’s two women characters, especially the conflicted incumbent Senator Laura Smith (Susan Wilder). To Smith, a loss would bring no closure to her frustrations, and a victory would only lead to a conflicted struggle to go forward.

By the start of Delaney’s play, the Republican Smith has clearly lost her candidacy, getting ground into the dirt by a soccer mom with a bad haircut in a mean-spirited campaign (her opponent called her bigot, racist, homophobe and every other politically incorrect term imaginable). When the perfectly coiffed Senator slinks into her campaign “war room” at 3:30 a.m., everyone has deserted her but Jessie (Meghan Heimbecker), a starry-eyed volunteer now stealing posters as souvenirs.

The conversation turns ugly

Over a half-dozen bottles of champagne, the two commiserate until the conversation turns ugly when Jessie gives her armchair quarterback’s version of how Smith lost the campaign. The relevance at least sticks; preferring to stick to the issues, Smith declined to exploit her diabetes or her daughter’s recent death to generate sympathy votes (unlike say, John Edwards). In Jessie’s mind, Smith threw in the towel from the start. She's sort of a stand-in for those real-life Republicans who think McCain pulled his punches against Obama.

Since Smith didn’t even tell her staff that she’s diabetic, this post-election alcohol binge sends her into a hallucinatory diabetic coma (nicely executed by Maria Shaplin’s lighting and Chris Colucci’s warping sound design). Suddenly, FDR (faithfully rendered by Tim Moyer) appears to dispense political wisdom, allowing a rare moment of humor when Smith tells him, “Go away and send Nixon— he’s more my type.”

Also much like the recent election, InterAct’s production showcased great performances of (nearly) unbelievable characters. Wilder’s initially stately portrayal of Senator Smith quickly morphed into a thoroughly believable carping bitch. But I never bought the internal conflicts in her character: Sheer ambition and wanting to run a clean campaign just don’t mix. And the play’s sudden, weird lesbian moment seemed not so much shocking as contrived.

A cheerful telemarketer’s enthusiasm

Heimbecker displayed impressive versatility, for Delaney’s script simultaneously casts her as a starry-eyed political science major, a possible plant from the opposing campaign, and finally a hopeful, dreamy idealist. Called upon to play these three possible and separate identities, she moves from shy and star-struck to suddenly eager and confident, finally becoming forceful and demanding, all the while dropping backhanded comments with gleeful glibness. When Heimbecker nearly sings her early lines with a cheerful telemarketer’s enthusiasm, she renders her character almost believable.

The dialogue— laced with political punditry and enough references to past election battles to keep political junkies interested—feels reminiscent of David Mamet in its sharp, terse, tense dialogue, but Mamet’s is sharper and more interesting. The script, though well managed by director Rebecca Wright, is not only unbelievable but also almost condescending in the hopeful tone displayed at the end.

Doubts about both major parties

Like me, Delaney feels skeptical about Democrats and Republicans alike, and his script vents on them equally. Young Jessie hates the socially conservative everything-phobic Republicans but can’t stand the Democrats either (at one point she calls them “pure evil”). The play’s sole poignant moment rightly points out that the country won’t survive such divisive hatred.

Nevertheless, Delaney’s answer to this divisiveness strains credulity: Jessie should look to the older Smith— who (allegedly) possesses an abundant compassion despite her hateful views— for a solution to move forward. “We’ll move to Kansas and become raging crackpots,” the now dreamy idealist Jessie suggests. That is, they’ll start a third party, attracting those who possess the courage to make real change.

I laughed at the irony of sitting in the theater on Election Day and being reminded of my dilemma in the voting booth. Is a third party solution as much of a fantasy in real life as it seems in this play?