Actors’ Theatre brings dystopian present with “Building the Wall”
The gripping two-character play, with Channelle Battles and Calin Skidmore, is set in a post-Trump America, shortly after the former President’s impeachment and exile to Palm Beach.
“Building the Wall,” Robert Schenkkan’s two-character play produced by Actor’s Theatre, is set in a prison interview room in what seems to be a dystopian future.
Off-stage sounds, including disturbing screams from down the hall and echoing heavy sliding metal doors, evoke an oppressive atmosphere as Gloria (Channelle Battles), an African American researcher, questions Rick (Calin Skidmore), a former prison guard and middle-aged white male clad in an orange prison suit.
Metal chairs screech on the floor when shifted. The only element that might be missing to make this stark nightmarish setting complete is the overhead hum of 60 cycle lighting.
Even more disturbing is the early revelation that the action taking place before us in the intimate confines of Dog Story Theatre is not set in the future. It’s happening in present day America.
Written in 2016, Schenkkan’s gripping play projects a post-Trump America, shortly after the former President’s impeachment and exile to Palm Beach. That might seem a stretch for some, but Schenkkan’s premise of how we get there can be counted on to hold an audience in the theatre for the show’s 75 minute duration. Before Thursday’s production was even halfway over it was clear that this was not to be an evening for the faint of heart. To their credit, none of the theatre-goers left.
If the unrest and dis-ease reflected in the characters of Gloria and Rick is any indication, Schenkkan’s U.S. is a nation now struggling with perpetrating a holocaust within its own borders, much like post World War II Germany struggling to reconcile its own crimes and record of genocide at Nuremberg.
As Gloria initiates her research interview, she and Rick clash on some of the usual issues that divided many Hillary and Trump supporters, including the national responses to immigration and terrorism. Here the play stutters a bit as the characters posture and jockey for position using the same tired talking points as the pundits on television.
When this debate thankfully subsides, Gloria prompts Rick to discuss honestly the “processing centers” where he served as a supervisor. His tale, told slowly at first, accelerates to reveal the details of a ghastly story: the growth of the daily arrivals in the numbers of immigrants, failure of the measures taken to deal with disease and overcrowding, the lack of sanitary conditions, the spread of cholera, the burning of the bodies and the giant cover up. Before long the processing center became a prison. Then the prison became a death camp.
And herein lies the essence of Schenkkan’s play. Using the rhetoric, false analogies and flawed thinking of the current political climate, he shows us a credible path and chain of events that demonstrate how such atrocities could actually happen in America.
In order for such an unthinkable scenario to take place in America today, or in Germany 80 years ago, there must be accomplices. Calin Skidmore, as Rick, delivers a three-dimensional character who, despite his previous “just following orders” behavior, is not totally unsympathetic. He is believable as a family man and as one who puts up at least mild resistance to the bosses who are the overlords of the destruction of thousands of innocent lives.
His jittery fidgeting and scratching belies the angst of a man forever uncomfortable in his own skin. He wears the world weary look that shows he knows that things worse than death may await him.
Skidmore’s relationship with Channelle Battles’ Gloria is key to the unfolding of this tortured tale. Although they clash over politics, these performers understand the give and take necessary for Gloria’s interrogation to move forward and for Rick’s half-hearted confession to be heard.
Director Carrie McNulty’s careful pacing assures that both Skidmore and Battles make key points and ask or answer key questions when the time arises.
Schenkkan gives Battles’ character some emotional and curiously revelatory information about her childhood experience with racism early in the play. Battles remains on task throughout the rest of the play, however, as she doggedly pursues the truth. More importantly, she seeks to clarify Rick’s role in the exterminations and listens intently as the awful truth is finally revealed.
An important question emerges as we watch Schenkkan’s fictional present day America. In this hypothetical world, the horrific events that Rick narrates and that Gloria mourns have already happened in the recent past and cannot now be prevented. Or can they?
The answer to this question might lie in one comment made in Thursday’s post-show discussion of the Michigan premiere of “Building the Wall:”
“This is a play for right now.”
“Building the Wall”
By Robert Schenkkan
Actors Theatre at Dog Story Theatre
March 22–24, 28–31
Purchase tickets and more information here.
