Pen Men

PEN MEN

Pen Men is the result of a project in a Northwestern University performance-studies class that required students to develop creative one-person pieces based on the lives and works of historical figures. The aim was to eliminate the dryness of the typical biographical one-man show by using creative performance techniques. Patrick McNulty as E. E. Cummings and Jon Mozes as Jerzy Kosinski are both capable performers, but what makes Pen Men rewarding is its subjects.

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Following Cummings’s lead, McNulty takes a nonlinear approach in “As Is,” presenting us with lectures and correspondence interspersed with Cummings’s poetry, wisely choosing to sketch a portrait rather than bog the show down with endless biographical detail. As the lecturing Cummings, McNulty speaks straightforwardly, allowing the audience to grasp some of Cummings’s feelings about love, war, and the poet’s role. But when performing Cummings’s poems, McNulty spins into a frenzy, embodying the playful magic of the words.

Mozes, an electrifying performer, succeeds in bringing Kosinski to life in the first half of his show, but falters in the second half, in which Kosinski refutes the accusation that he was a CIA agent and the Village Voice’s charges that he did not write many of his major works. By devoting so much time to these issues, Mozes manages to make the charges seem a great deal more credible than they were. He also relies a little too much on resume-style biographical facts, dwelling on the awards Kosinski received for his writing rather than on the writing itself.