The Great American Desert

The Great American Desert is very much like the proverbial little girl who had a curl right in the middle of her forehead: when it is good, it is very good, and when it's bad, it certainly is horrid. Like the little girl, it is moody, often funny, sometimes serious, frequently and petulantly cute, and then again just plain naughty. Within a scant hour, it manages to touch on the following subjects: the American Ideal, larceny, age, prostitution, sypnilis, dope addiction, juvenile delinquency, homosexuality, et al. That kind of range would be difficult in any play--in The Great American Desert, it's insurmountable.

Joel Oppenheimer's play was written, certainly, with good intentions. Centering around three cowboy desperadoes crossing the Western plains, it seeks to bitterly expose the great American romance for what it was. Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, and Wild Bill Hickock sit on a raised platform (that's heaven, pardner) and from time to time offer "commercials" on "The Sixgun That Won The West," "The Indians of the Americas--A Veritable Tower of Babel," and such. The format is funny and the commercials (and their delivery) are for the most part very funny. Near the end of the play, each of the "heroes" reveals himself--Doc is a con man, Billy is a J.D., Wyatt felt it was his calling to murder, and Wild Bill, good ole Wild Bill, is queer. This skeleton rattling brought to mind the recent screen satire, Cat Ballou, but Mr. Oppenheimer's heroes are far more perverted, far too bitter. He doesn't laugh at the foibles of the Old West, he indicates that they were part of the rotten-to-the-core morality that has existed and does exist in America.

If Desert's heavenly heroes are sordid, then its earthly characters are their embodiment in life. The Old Cowboy now wants his home on the range (but he keeps close guard on the stolen bank money), The Gunny nervously keeps his hand on the trigger, his mind on his belly, and his sanity with injections of the needle. The red-blooded Young Cowboy gets the banker's daughter in trouble, and reveals the scene of his home-leaving when his father caught him with his sister: "I was but twelve, but I faced him down even then. I had my colt apointin' at his heart afore he even got his gun out." So much for The American Dream.

It must be admitted that the Loeb Experimental Theatre did an excellent job of production. The cast, headed by Peter Rousmaniere, Peter Morin, and John Mercer, all performed well, and occasionally with excellence. The minor flashback characters were good in spite of the brevity of their parts, with Farrell Page becomingly wistful in her short stint as The Banker's Beautiful (but now pregnant) Daughter. All the heroes were first-rate, with Doug Kenny particularly funny as gay Wild Bill. Other physical aspects of the production deserve credit, and certainly the direction can only be hailed as superb. The fault, then, lies in the play itself. Like the little girl, it is often very good and very sharp, and its humor and satire strike home. Its main flaw, perhaps, is that the three central characters really don't amount to much. Time drags on the Desert, even if it is only an hour. And worst of all, the entire conception doesn't quite come off. The wild west notion is certainly a good topic for satire, but when it is pushed to an indictment of yesterday's and today's America, it falls flat in its saddle.