Fatherland
Ron Battitta and Patrick Keleher. Photo: Maria Barnova
Fatherland
New York City Center Stage 2
Through November 23
If I had the seemingly bottomless pockets of, say, Michael Bloomberg, I would buy a network and run the docu-play Fatherland 24/7 until November 4.
I’ll admit to having put off attending, since I consider myself an already braying member of the choir supposedly being preached to. But this is not a preachy play. It’s electric, riveting, immediate — fresh from the headlines, as publicists like to say, even if the precipitating event occurred nearly four years ago.
Unless you were there, massed in front of the Capitol (I’ll assume not), you were probably glued to your screen — incredulous as the rest of us — as Trump’s incensed fans seized upon Inauguration Day to carry out a well-planned assault on democracy.
The play — conceived and directed by Stephen Sachs, co-founder and artistic director of LA’s Fountain Theater — draws its text from the public record. Two weeks before the riot, a seventeen-year-old student, “Son” (played with consummate naturalism by theatre tyro Patrick Keleher) really did go on the FBI tip site to report his concern regarding “Father” (Ron Bottitto), in real life Guy Reffitt, a “Three Percenter” intent on disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.
The story unfolds with Son on the stand, being smartly deposed by a U.S. Attorney (Anna Khaja, restrained yet sharp). In flashbacks we get to witness the growing wedge between Father and Son, with the latter fully aware of the near-biblical act of “betrayal” he set in motion with that single warning text.
Full co-credit is due Bottitto for giving us a villain who makes his own kind of sense. At one point a competent — if occasionally abusive — “provider,” Father has lost his way financially and needs someone to blame. Into the void: A criminal charlatan whose bluster he longs to emulate.
The armed onslaught, as staged, could trigger anyone who has been subjected to physical or mental abuse or merely sat rapt and revolted in front of a TV that day. So go in forewarned — but go! And get your friends to go. The danger is real, and it hasn’t abated.