Playwright: Lee Blessing. At: TimeLine at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont. Tickets: 773-975-8150; www.timelinetheatre.com; $34-$44. Runs through: Nov. 20
We expect first-rate shows from TimeLine Theatre, and the troupe delivers again with this engaging, even sprightly production of A Walk in the Woods, Lee Blessing's intelligent rumination on the wary friendship between American and Soviet arms-reduction negotiators. As a two-character play, it's a smaller scale production than usual for TimeLine, which doesn't stop sure-handed director Nick Bowling from taking a fresh approach: with Blessing's OK, the Soviet negotiator has undergone a sex change and now is a woman.
Perhaps the switch wouldn't be as effective without Janet Ulrich Brooks as Anya Botvinnik, the weary and sometimes cynical yet charming Soviet negotiator who has engaged for years in fruitless talks between the superpowers. Brooks and Bowling take full advantage of the change in tone the sex switch allows, introducing the dynamics of occasional girlishness, flirtation, motherliness and even the feminine mystique to lines which, in previous productions with a male negotiator as written, are those of a Russian bear playing cute or coy. To say Brooks is convincing and appealing is an understatement.
As John Honeyman, the American negotiator new to the arms talks, TimeLine veteran David Parkes is no slouch. Trimly elegant in his stylishly conservative suits and ties, he's every inch the wary and solemn newcomer determined to prove his mettle, and still idealistic enough to believe something might be achieved. Initially reluctant to engage in off-the-books talks with his Soviet counterpart, Parkes delivers precisely the necessary degree of starchiness and yet convey Honeyman's decency and sincerity.
Set in a forest near Geneva, Switzerland (conveyed by Brian Sidney Bembridge with simple economy using plywood trees and leafy video projections), A Walk in the Woods was written in 1986 and was inspired by real negotiations that came thisclose to a meaningful arms reduction treaty. The play ends with bittersweet failure for Botvinnik and Honeyman, although their real-life counterparts were rewarded by arms treaties in 1987 and 1991 (the START treaty that was renegotiated successfully last year).
In 1985, there were over 70,000 missile-based nuclear warheads in the world. Thanks to START, there now are fewer than 20,000. But since two or three dozen missiles could destroy the worldfewer than that using so-called dirty bombswhat difference does it make? Blessing and his characters fully embrace the cynicism inherent in nuclear weapons strategies, yet also state that anything is possible onceand ifopponents can trust each other.
Today, nuclear war is far more likely to come about through the actions of a rogue nation or terrorists than because of disagreements between the United States and Russia. That sad truth makes A Walk in the Woods far more poignant than purposeful in a world which has grown infinitely less rational in 25 years.