The Off-Broadway Theatre Review; 2ST’s Spain

By Ross

It’s like we walked into an old spy movie with handlers and propaganda slinking around the edges, backlit and mysterious, but with a level of frenetic distortion that is more Hollywood than any kind of documentary informational film that is being discussed here. Playing out large and fantastical at the Tony Kiser, Second Stage Theater, the new play, Spain, written with a sharp sly wit by Jen Silverman (Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties) and directed with a cinematic edge by Tyne Rafaeli (PH’s I Was Most Alive with You), strikes its tone very early on, diving in fast and furious as two filmmakers discuss making a film about a country that they have no real connection to. Nor have any investment in.

The year is 1936, and this is not, by any means, a fact-based play written to unravel the complex making of the propaganda documentary, “The Spanish Earth“, even though this is exactly what these two characters, beautifully portrayed by Andrew Burnap (Broadway’s The Inheritance) as filmmaker Joris Ivens, and Marin Ireland (ATC’s Blue Ridge; OHenry’s Uncle Vanya), as his girlfriend slash co-creator, Helen, are discussing from the moment they rotate into view. Their engagement is expertly crafted, overflowing with fascinating distortions and abstractionisms, dealt out carefully on that sparse mysterious set filled with rich colors and dark shadows, designed cleverly by Dane Laffrey (Broadway’s Parade) with sculped lighting by Jen Schriever (Broadway’s Death of a Salesman) and backed by purposefully dynamic music by sound designer Daniel Kluger (Broadway’s The Sound Inside).

Ivens has been tasked by his Russian handler, a member of the KGB, although no one should mention that, nor say his name – in one of the play’s best back-and-forth inflations about secrecy and stealthness. Spain rotates and shifts around the proposition with expert diligence, discussing with compelling earnestness how to craft a film that, without referring to the Russians, underlines their ideal. The formulation needs to be unpacked in a single public relations sentence, one that favors the working class poor stance against the rich, as Russia would want. And that’s exactly what these two intend to do. Not because of some great affiliation with Russia or the movement, but because this is how the making of their art will get funded. And it doesn’t seem to matter what the cause is, or who is paying for it.

It’s all art talk without any of the details that might muddy the water, but with the ultimate goal, we are told, of persuading Americans to donate funds to the Spanish communists. Once again, this is not the point for this pair of hired artists. And the line, therefore is blurry, that between truth and fiction, and as written, it’s a clever, sharp, sophisticated world that is unpacked here, filled with slippery determined fierceness and strategy, displayed like a cheap pulp fiction spy novel with worn-out, curled-up paper edges from being thrown around and shoved away in dark corners.

Ireland’s Helen is an astounding presence, engaged and complicated, giving off details and then retracting them as if the game they are playing is fun and sexy, but also boring if you play with the toy for too long. Helen is a complicated abstraction, wheeling and convincing her way through, while also being somewhat disillusioned with her involvement in the making of the film. Ethics shift around as quickly as the taunt integrity of this pair of artists; two characters that Silverman uses and has constructed with a wildness and hilarious specificity, filled to the bitter end with contradictions and trust issues.

Cloaked most impressively by the costuming of Alejo Vietti (off-Broadway’s Titanique) in sinister shadows inside exposed doorways, Spain delivers solidly, giving us a Soviet agent, usually played by Zachary James (Broadway’s South Pacific) – but in this performance was played by Tom Nelis (Broadway’s Indecent) – who watches over them, threateningly but also somewhat comically, as if we are in on the joke, even though it might not be the funniest proposition. It’s there, in that slanted art and mixed metaphors where the craftiness of this blood-drenched soil finds its flavor. The writing plays with us, giving us historical aspects of the Spanish Civil War and how the KGB played a part in its framing, but finding its force within the absurdist reasonings for these two getting involved.

“That’s super Spanish,” they exclaim as they make a list that might somehow connect them to the far-away country of Spain. It’s in their tight wordplay, a framing that sounds more like an art gallery owner curating some artist’s work so it will sell, where the deliciousness of the interactions finds their purpose. Especially once they recruit the thoughtful John Dos Passos, played beautifully by Erik Lochtefeld (CSC’s Macbeth) to be secretly used as a jealous device to enlist their true intent, his old pal, Hemingway, played outrageously by Danny Wolohan (Broadway’s West Side Story). The pair really want Hemingway to write a screenplay for their film about Spain. Or is it the KGB? And in the end, is he more trouble than he is worth?

The four, watched over by the sinister shadow drenching the film-noir atmosphere most delightfully, engage in a rich and absurd debate over soundbites, slogans, ideals, and thoughtful examination of the facts, the formula, and their meaning. Especially regarding their handlers. It’s clever, yet sometimes distancing, as it seems to fly into absurdist spaces that keep it just a little out of reach. The final showdown, shifting in time and period for the purpose of a modernized framing, is commendable, showcasing the dangers of disinformation and propaganda served up with plastic bottles of water to be consumed and distributed. It’s absolutely clever, and comical, while also hitting some solid points that register. But the engagement shifts somewhat, leaving us with a Spain that feels almost as far away as Russia and the KGB, even while we smile at the formulation.