On the stereotype spectrum, some labels prompt moral outrage while others earn little more than a shrug. "Dumb jock" falls into the latter category. We know the term is a put-down, yet it reflects commonly-held beliefs. Brawn crowds out brains. If you play sports, you can't be too bright.
"Third," currently onstage at Hangar Theatre and directed by Michael Barakiva, is a play that takes a hard swing at the dumb jock image, connects, and delivers a home run. The final work of Wendy Wasserstein --whose 1989 Broadway play "The Heidi Chronicles" earned her a Pulitzer and a Tony--"Third" hews close to the formula the playwright is known for: stories of intelligent, conflicted women who struggle with self-doubt.
Laurie Jameson is a brilliant academician and campus superstar at a small prestigious New England college, a professor who draws students to the school and interprets everything through a feminist lens. If pride really does goeth before a fall, then we know early on where Laurie is headed. On campus she's erudite, arrogant, so full of hubris that it's tough to like her. At home, however, it's a different story. She mourns the absence of her younger daughter Emily, a freshman at another college; she wrangles her elderly father, a vague and rambling victim of Alzheimer's; and she winces every time her husband--a fellow academician exercising his way through a mid-life crisis--drops his weights.
The simmering resentment she harbors toward the men in her life is obvious. When a new student--chatty, charming, boyish Woodson Bull, III, the "Third" of the play's title--rubs her the wrong way, she becomes negatively fixated on him, ultimately accusing him of plagiarism and launching formal proceedings against him. He's a dumb jock, she reasons, and the paper he handed in is so brilliant and articulate there's no way he could have written it.
The assumptions she makes about him--his class, privilege, intelligence--begin to bleed into her other relationships, and each subsequent scene gives us glimpses into the intimate, fraught connections she has with family and friends.
This intimacy is what makes "Third" moving and effective. Dee Pelletier inhabits Laurie Jameson with full-throated anger, frustration, and the manic moods only a woman in the throes of menopause can fully appreciate. She channels the frustrated feminist's fight in the face of patriarchal oppression but never lets her righteous fury slip into something cartoonish and stereotyped.
Catherine Weidner plays Laurie's best friend, fellow English professor Nancy Gordon, with a delicate yet down-to-earth poignancy. Weidner, who is Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Ithaca College, proves that those who can, teach as well as act.
Another local, Syracuse University Drama associate professor Malcolm Ingram, submerges himself in the role of Laurie's father Jack Jameson. Ingram is both touching and compelling in his portrayal of a man losing his memory and independence, yet still possessed of his sense of pride, playful spirit, and love of family--even when he can't recognize them.
Laurie's daughter Emily is the one character who can stand up to her mother's prejudices, exacting expectations, and harsh world views. Eunice Akinola plays Emily with a quietly powerful undercurrent of strength. She reads as youthful yet demonstrates a capable, old-soul wisdom that puts her mother's political posturings to shame.
The show standout is David Patterson, forthright and engaging as Woodson Bull the Third. Throughout Act I he radiates such optimistic, honest sincerity you can't help but wonder, "Is he genuine? Is he lying? Of course he's lying. No, he can't be lying." It's hard to believe he's real--and the play hinges on that uncertainty. Patterson keeps us there without displaying a single note of artifice, and it's a masterful performance. The denouement--and the fallout from the clash between professor and student--is heightened in Act II, when Patterson shows even more depth as an actor and brings his character to places unexpected and thought-provoking.
Shoko Kambara's clean, crisp set design is an example of clever duality: we see both an academic institution that's moribund and an appealing New England campus that no visiting student could resist. From the suggestion of a quad with herringbone brick paths cutting through swaths of grass to the imposing image of a college seal behind wooden doors that admit some and keep out others, the atmosphere is fully realized. Costume designer Suzanne Chesney is spot-on in her wardrobe choices for English professors Laurie and Nancy. Laurie's ethnic-inspired jackets with embroidered sleeves and Nancy's flowing, asymmetrical tunic tops and shearling boots capture the aging-yet-hip academician.
The topic of student plagiarism at college is well-timed considering recent national events. For those dismissive of the Melania Trump plagiarism scandal at the Republican National Convention, "Third" reinforces how seriously intellectual theft is regarded in the academic world, and why opinion is split on this issue.
For director Michael Barakiva (who is also Hangar's interim artistic director), this convergence of real life and art stresses the importance of character, integrity, acceptance, and coming together across cultural divides. In his curtain speech, Barakiva noted the ability of theatre to "unify us as a community celebrating diversity, love, justice, equality and most of all, hope....[and] advance the work of eradicating racism, sexism, classism, and all the other other horrible isms that stop our world from being the best it can be."
Despite his uncertain future, in the final scene the title character advises us: "Always go with the hope." Go with "Third" at the Hangar Theatre and you won't go wrong.
The Details
What:
"Third"
Where:
The Hangar Theatre, 801 Taughannock Blvd., Ithaca, NY
When seen:
July 22
Length of performance:
1 hour 45 minutes with a 15-minute intermission
Family guide:
Suitable for high school and up
Runs through:
July 30
Ticket information and reservations:
607-273-2787 and
www.HangarTheatre.org