A Desolate Beach at the Loeb

JASON MILLER'S That Championship Season was conceived of and written in the heat of the Nixon years, and the play reflects the peculiar bitter consciousness of that era. It's no accident that all the characters are ex-atheltes, bred on the same Vince Lombardi-type homilies that powered the Palace Guard.

And because of these highly specific political roots, the play, four years later, has already lost some of its power. When the coach quotes Theodore Roosevelt glorifying "the man in the arena," the mind races automatically to memories of the Real Last Press Conference, and we can congratulate Miller for having anticipated Nixon so well. Nevertheless, it has the scent of yesterday's headlines; watching it is remembrance, not terror, as it was when we had Nixon before us, proclaiming he would not allow America to be reduced to a helpless pitiful giant.

But because Miller constructs his characters with such care and complexity, the play has the potential for surviving Nixon's downfall. And the mood he made pervasive has not dissipated totally; rather, it has taken on new permutations. "Never accept less than the best," the coach admonishes his ex-stars.

Four of the five starting members of a Pennsylvania high school state championship basketball team come together at their coach's house to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their greatest victory. They reunite in a grand show of cameraderie and jock-ish affection, but the strains between them and the failures of their individual lives begin to show quickly.

George Sikowski (Cole Stevens), mayor of the town, faces an uphill re-election fight, and Phil Romano (Charles Laquidera, a WBCN dj) who inherited his father's strip-mining business isn't sure that he shouldn't back George's Jewish challenger, Sharman. James Daley, (Jon Terry) unloved and unsuccessful, is embittered with his job as a junior high school principal, and regards himself as a man of "unfulfilled potential." James feels he has been held back by his obligations to his recently-deceased father and Tom (William Leach) his alcoholic brother. And through it all is the coach (Alan Gifford), spouting maxims, insisting that they must hang tough with each other; nothing has changed in 20 years, it is still us against them. "Beat that Jew, Beat that Jew," sneers Tom, "Go Gentiles!"

What the play cannot retain as political allegory it can make up in sheer drama, but this possibility is diluted by Lester Thompson Jr.'s overly symbolic direction and the general inadequacy of the actors. Thompson sets the living room in the middle of a basketball court, a heavyhanded attempt to indicate omnipresent memories of glories past. As the audience enters, a young man is shooting baskets, and we find out later that he is supposed to represent the spirit of Martin, the fifth player who never comes to the reunions. He stays there through the beginning of the play, and, incredibly, is seen by one of his ex-teammates when he leaves the stage. Whether Thompson means to suggest that this particular jock has special vision which permits him insights into the spirit-world is nuclear. But the effect again is of clumsy, misdirected symbolism in a play that should be presented as intensely realistic.

Some of the obvious blunders--muffed lines, missed cures, over-anticipated dialogue--can be attributed to opening night nervousness, but it appears that in the pacing of the play, Thompson again is seeking an inappropriate mood. Miller provides some fine telling moments which are worthy of pauses, but the bulk of the play must be quick-paced. The dialogue is, after all, essentially locker room banter; under Thompson's direction it is transmuted into nervous chatter at a dull cocktail party.

The cast fails to bring to the production any of the vitality and bravado that one associates with jocks. Admittedly these are broken men, shells of their former selves as the cliche goes, but here there are not even any shells. Particularly lacking in the energy department is Laquidara. Romano, with his good looks, money, and women should be bursting with at least the appearance of arrogance, but Laquidara, either because of poor direction or his own inabilities, fails to exude anything but timidity. His final confession of emptiness--he describes his love of 145 mph drives in his "porche" and the accompanying sentiment that "I'm just speed and nothing can catch me"--lacks intensity.

Laquidara's failures take their toll on the rest of the cast. Jon Terry as James captures the essence of the resentful, mediocre man in his every movement and expression. As he ambles around the stage, shoulders slightly hunched, you can feel it in his bearing: These people are using me. They are out to humiliate me. And his occasional outbursts of rage create a varied texture in his performance; but these moments, which should be the strongest, are ruined, since Laquidara in confronting him is so unforceful. James's "impotent" tantrums appear overwhelming in contrast.

Alan Gifford starts off the show unimpressively. His portrayal of the coach is fairly monotonous, showing him as a senile old man incapable of inspriing anyone. Gifford warms up in the third act however and his last soliloquoy, where he quotes his father's last words--"Always remember this; Karl Marx was a Jew"--is profoundly moving and funny.

The part of Tom, the alcoholic, can only be convincing when the entire play is working. He is the most poorly developed character, the one we know the least about; he circles around the action making caustic comments without permitting anyone to know him. William Leach fills the bill competently although his final breakdown is incomprehensible to us, having been given no previous background about his character. Leach does not handle this weakness in Miller's script very well; and apparently he too failed to find the motivation for his character's collapse.

Cole Stevens as the mayor does not have Leach's excuse; George's development is clearly delineated in the play's action. With little subtlety, Stevens lapses into an Outer Limits-like trance which is supposed to resemble a nervous collapse, but just looks plain silly.

Miller's play may not have the same political immediacy that it did when it opened four years ago in New York, but there's still a lot that's salvageable in it in the way of human drama. The Loeb production, however, misses it; and what's left is a sterile, intellectual exercise in symbols.

JOHN HAVLICEK attended the opening night of the show, and said at the second intermission that he was enjoying it. "The dialogue is pretty routine, the kind of thing you hear in locker rooms, pretty accurate," he said. "But I don't know, I've never known anyone who was into the heavy stuff the guys in this play are into."

Hondo said he was particularly into the coach. "The coach does have that kind of influence in high school--he's the one who's supposed to guide you through all your problems. But it's kind of unusual for guys to have the same relationship with the coach 20 years later."

Havilcek said that he had never encountered any Championship Season situations himself. "You have to remember--these guys are from a town of 50,000; the town I grew up in had only about 400 people. My sophomore year the team went 4-14. We got better though; senior year we only lost one. I've lost touch with most of the guys on that team. One's the superintendent of schools out there; the other guys, I don't know what they're into."