Take Me Out bares baseball egos and prejudice

By Burt Saidel

There is no shortage of interesting theater in Dayton.  We have, in fact, a superabundance of theaters, devoted actors, directors and audiences.

The season offerings are varied and provide a mix of dramas, musicals and avant garde experiences.  While there is no formula for the schedules, the “cusps” of the season often bring out the wildest offerings. That is often the time for imaginations to run wild.

This year the Human Race Loft series and the Dayton Theatre Guild bellied up to the bar with a pair of wild cards which made their marks. The Human Race Loft series added Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out to their regular season.

The Tony Award winning play was a season extra.  The most hyped ingredient, full male nudity, kept it, wisely, off the regular schedule.  The hype was not limited to the display of male nudity.  Take Me Out is also a play centered on our national sport – baseball.  Both of these key ingredients are a promoter’s dream.

The play was about baseball.  It also was a more than ample display of locker room haute couture.  If that was the reason for attending, you were not disappointed.  There was, however, so much more.

Co-directed by Tim Lile and Marsha Hanna, the often brilliant dialogue and action dug into more than a bunch of guys playing baseball.  Try this for a plot outline.  Two time world champions, The Empires, are coasting into a “threepeat.”

The team’s franchise player, Darren Lemming, is box office perfection.  The leading hitter, flawless fielder, handsome, black, eloquent, filthy rich and not from the ghetto, is a bona fide idol.  His team is an interesting amalgam of experienced baseball sages, new kids on the block, Japanese and Hispanic imports.  Add to that a very rough-hewn kid, a one-pitch relief ace whose history of abuse, ignorance, disaffection and prejudice of every conceivable stripe makes him the dramatic turning point of the play.

The set is very clever, a combination of locker room and pitcher’s mound – with real flowing showers.  The drama unfolds when Darren, the idol, reveals to the media that he is gay.  This chagrins and confounds his teammates and his crusty manager, played to the very walls by versatile superstar Scott Stoney.

The problem is not that Darren is gay.  The problem is why he had to “come out” so publicly in mid season, etc, etc.  He has not violated any sexual taboos; he has violated baseball, and baseball is their life.

Everything moves into an interesting accommodation phase often acted during prolonged, and highly nude, shower scenes.  The proverbial monkey wrench in the mechanism is the newly-acquired relief pitcher, Shane.  A card-carrying redneck, his only purpose in life is to throw his one unhittable pitch and save the game.

The dialogue, less brilliant, less philosophical, concentrates on putting the pieces together into a conclusion.  The conclusion: this is life with all its problems of identity, ego, and prejudice.  My conclusion, Take Me Out is an interesting play, brilliantly acted and presented.

David Marantz, Brian McKnight. Lindsay Smiling, J.J. Tiemeyer, Alan Bomar Jones and Lucas Van Engen handle their roles with gusto and brilliance.  I do wonder if the play is unconstitutional.  While I am no legal scholar, I recall the stirring words establishing our great land, “All men are created equal.” It was obvious that the characters in Take Me Out were not.  Is this a problem?

Dayton Theatre Guild’s The Dice House

Next, we moved farther out into the world of complete crazies.  The Theatre Guild’s The Dice House, Paul Lucas’ exposition of what happens when lunatics take over the asylum, was so well acted and staged that the audience began to feel that they were the crazy ones, not the actors cavorting on stage.

It was a wild experience which defies theater logic.  Nonetheless, it was quite a ride for the audience.  The cast, led by Gil Martin, Mark Diffenderfer, Elena Monigold and Blake Senseman did their best to convince us that they were the sane ones.  At time, it almost worked.

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June 26, 2007
Volume 16, No. 26

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