LOOKING THROUGH TWO JOHNNIES
In Looking Through Two Johnnies, Beau O’Reilly and Jenny Magnus have taken on the enormous task of examining the complexities of war, both its reasons and its ramifications. Like Bertolt Brecht, they use broad, absurd characters to bring to life the preposterous reality that is life during wartime. Like Brecht, they use music and poetry and direct confrontation to remove the audience from the fiction a little and allow them to think about what’s being said. As Brecht often did, they use a sustained metaphor (in this case, a deadly game) for society. But unlike Brecht, who used these devices to make his point clear, Magnus and O’Reilly end up making a complex issue even more murky.
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The show’s ambiguity perfectly reflects our society’s view on the possibly impending war and the confusion of a generation whose only experience (if any) with war is Vietnam. But as theater, the hodgepodge of themes and ideas presented is just too scattered and random to say much of anything, although its cryptic quality is certainly intriguing. The slyness of the performers gives the distinct impression that there is an overriding statement being made. But though each vignette has its own point to make–war is mainly the product of greedy businessmen, or life in wartime is just an intensified version of life in peacetime–the pieces don’t fit together.
Magnus and O’Reilly have infused Looking Through Two Johnnies with wonderful verbal imagery and some powerful insights into the way people deal with war on a personal level. (One of the more powerful of these comes from the most whacked-out character, a drug-crazed genius: “Choosing ease within an atmosphere of awful, I take another shot.”) They also have a delightfully perverse sense of humor (including an ongoing bastardization of the antiwar classic “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”), which makes a horrifying subject easy to watch. And the songs, mostly written by Magnus, give the play an epic dimension and provide much of the bite.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Tamara Staples.
