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‘Screen Play’ satirizes frightening rightwing Republican future

Gurney remake of ‘Casablanca’ is comic fable for our time

By Lucy Komisar

A band of committed people are struggling against a repressive state. One dedicated individual needs to get across the border to continue the fight. He is a wanted man and his passport is useless; he needs letters of transit. His wife, who once loved another, is committed to him because of his political mission. They find themselves at a border town seeking the letters at the piano bar run by her former lover, Nick. The place is Buffalo.

Buffalo? Did you think this was Casablanca?

A.R. Gurney, who comes from Buffalo, sets it as the jumping off place for a mostly very funny satire about a futuristic 2015 Republican oligarchic police state, which liberals seek to flee over the peace bridge to Canada. Exit from the country being restricted, only letters of transit allow them to leave – and without being strip-searched. The sleazy Renzo (Kevin T. Moore) has two letters he wants to sell. (Moore makes a great Peter Lorie.)

The jokes are one-liner-style zingers with an undertone of reality that makes you shudder even as you laugh. Suspected subversives are subject to “rendition” to Texas. The excellent Nedra McClyde does a smashing job singing songs about Buffalo.

The weakest part of the play is the love story between Nick (Drew Hildebrand) and Sally (Meredith Holzman), which drags; it seems more like a date melodrama between 20-somethings than an ill-fated passion between characters of mystery.

The play is performed on stools, but Jim Simpson’s lively direction make you forget there’s no set. Especially fine performances are delivered by John Fico as the sneering rightwing Sen. Abner Patch, Kevin Moore in multiple roles as Patch’s aide, the scruffy Renzo and others, McClyde as a sultry-voiced piano bar singer, Drew Hildebrand as the self-contained Nick and Dave McKeel as a laid-back police chief.

You can laugh now, but in 2015? Gurney would be the first to say that nobody knows.

“Screen Play.” Written by A.R. Gurney. Directed by Jim Simpson. Starring John Fico, Meredith Holzman, Drew Hildebrand, Nedra McClyde, Dave McKeel, Kevin T. Moore, Brian Morvant.

The Flea, 41 White Street (between Bway and Church, any Canal St. subway stop. 212 Mon-Sat 7 pm, Wed & Sat 3 pm. Runtime: 65 min. $30, $40. 212 352-3101. http//: www.theflea.org.

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