ON THE OPEN ROAD
At its first-act best, On the Open Road is a millennial comedy, a vision of life on the eve of Judgment Day. Its setting is a nameless country that resembles by turn Nazi Germany (the music of Wagner and Beethoven booms through the air), postcommunist Eastern Europe, a totalitarian South American nation, “liberated” Kuwait, and the urban wastelands of America’s inner cities; across this dangerous and devastated terrain two homeless men plod toward the ever-elusive Land of the Free. (Add Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena to that list of influences.) Brawny, bluff-spoken Angel (played by Steve Pickering with his usual blend of physical and intellectual vitality) pulls a cart of plundered art–gilt-framed paintings, a headless Winged Victory–that his partner and mentor Al (a slickly ironic Jordan Charney) plans to sell for admission to the promised land, which has long ago stopped admitting refugees unless they can pay their way in. Their own unnamed nation has become impossible for them to live in: a religious revival has sparked a series of civil wars among such factions as the Christian Democrats and the Corporate Christians–and Christ himself has returned to earth, apparently to give cello concerts. “Second Coming!” growls Angel in a tone of voice usually identified with such phrases as “Rock and roll, dude,” as he recalls the experience of seeing Jesus in a soccer stadium.
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In On the Open Road, the problem is compounded by the fact that Tesich’s script seems to come not from real experience but from intellectual conceit. The running gag about Angel rattling off the birth and death dates of philosophers is quite funny–“Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804,” he dutifully proclaims as he hangs from his crucifixion girder at the end of the play–but Angel’s understanding seems at about the same level as Tesich’s. “A starry night above me and a moral law within me,” says Al, quoting Kant as he approaches death; shortly afterward the cyclorama behind the actors blossoms with beautiful stars. But instead of a starry night and a moral law, all On the Open Road offers is a technically slick projection and a glib, preachy script.
