8/25/2024 THE ROCK AND THE HARD PLACE Essential Theatre Play Festival
FATAL INTEGRITY
We seem to be living in an era of Integrity Decline. Winning has become ALL in our political system, and Integrity is a liability in a candidate. Claims of “Fake News” and “Biased Reporting” make any journalistic integrity suspicious. Social Media has created “Belief Bubbles” that soothe and comfort and affirm our beliefs, so, we not only disbelief anything outside the claims of our “Bubble,” we rarely (in some cases never) even hear any conflicting opinion. PolitiFact and Snopes are “Liberally Biased” and most Conservative outlets are in the thrall of “Big MAGA.”
To add a nail in the coffin of Integrity as a virtue, I offer Emily McClain’s powerful and compelling The Rock and the Hard Place. This moving play shows a situation in which a strong sense of integrity may just lead to an innocent man’s execution.
Alan Tully has been on death row for 23 years, jailed for the murder of a co-worker, a murder he maintains he did not commit. He has exhausted all avenues of appeal, and his date with the executioner has been set. His daughter, Elsie, is on the edge of panic, doing whatever she must to save her father’s life, even willing to do the desperate, the crazy. If it will save her father, it’s on her “to do” list.
Then a letter arrives in her mailbox, a letter from a man who confesses to the murder in an attempt to “expiate his sins” before he dies, a last-ditch effort to atone to those he wronged before his illness takes him. Elsie receives the letter after the man has died. But in the letter, the man claims to have also confessed verbally to his attorney in a money-laundering case, which, in a perfect world, would result in the immediate exoneration of Alan Tully.
But this is not a perfect world, and it is not even close to being a perfect legal system. Because of attorney-client confidentiality, the man’s attorney cannot corroborate the letter unless his client waives privilege. And, of course, the client died before he could waive that privilege. So the lawyer is stuck between the proverbial “Rock and Hard Place” – if he corroborates the letter, he will be sanctioned and maybe even disbarred. If he holds faith and stands on his integrity, a demonstrably innocent man will be executed.
As the date of Alan’s execution gets nearer, Elsie grows more and more desperate. She gets fired from her job for shoving a client who was pitching a website that would provide internet communication to inmates but would allow the state to “slow down” connection to beef up billable time. She loses her only friend, a D&D co-player, for stealing his {Deleted by the Spoiler Police}. She alienates her “Innocence Project” attorney by … well, by being understandably (but uncontrollably) angry and ranting..
And it all comes to a tense confrontation that will (probably) not end well for anyone involved.
There is so much to appreciate in this production. The spare set (by Alan Pagdon) brilliantly uses the same structure as The Other Part of the Picture (Huzzah for excellent Repertory design!), and adds a table and some chairs which morph magically into a basement geek pad, a lawyer’s office, a “front stoop,” a conference room, and most importantly, a prison visitor room; a guard on the second floor ledge of the 7 Stages black box space a constant (and menacing) reminder of where we are. Fred Philip’s sound design starts us off with a smarmy “True Crime” podcast, and moves from there to wonderful atmospheric ambience, including a prison alarm buzzer that is loud enough to startle everyone in the room. Harley Gould’s lighting design keeps mood and clarity intact and is a vital part of setting the various locations.
But it is this cast that brings this story to full (and tragic) life. Indya Bussey is heartbreaking as Elsie, positively oozing love for the father she’s known only as an inmate for most of her life, gradually descending into true madness by the bureaucratic (or, more charitably, ethical) roadblocks that never stop coming, finally losing whatever small grip of reality remains to her for a truly heart-rending final scene.
As Jeremy Hollingbrook, the lawyer at the center of the conflict, Durell Brown is steadfast and kind, truly flummoxed by the dilemma he faces, fully aware of the cost his integrity bears, yet needing to pay that cost for himself and his fiancée (nicely played by Jennifer Brown).
Mala Bhattacharya is wonderful as Elsie’s “Innocence Project” attorney, Rashida, faithfully dedicated to finding justice, and trying to find a way through the morass of the rigid legal code without sacrificing her own integrity. As Alan, Roger Payano is paradoxically the calm in the center of a maelstrom, fully resigned to his fate and trying to make the most of the time he has left. Finally, as Elsie’s friend Russell, Chase Steven Anderson is a breath of delightful nerdy humor, clueless as to what’s really going on with Elsie, but willing to do anything (almost) to help her.
Director Kyle Brumley does an excellent job of guiding this through this impossible situation, finishing with a fast-paced 90-minute running time, using his cast members to smoothly segue between scenes, and keeping them in full view to watch scenes they’re not part of, a constant reminder that whatever happens, there will be a human cost.
Some may accuse Ms. McClain of “stacking the deck,” of constructing a scenario with an obviously not-guilty prisoner. I think her choice makes the play more effective, more involving, more suspenseful. We tend to be judgmental about the incarcerated – “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” “They have only themselves to blame,” “They have it coming, whatever ‘it’ may be.” The playwright could easily make the same points with a not-so-innocent inmate, someone imprisoned falsely but guilty of other crimes. Someone presenting a more nuanced but still valid dilemma. But I believe the scenario she has constructed makes for a stronger case, a vivid portrait of what happens when Scylla finally collides with Charybdis.
My skin-deep research taught me that some states (not all) permit the breaking of confidentiality if not doing so would result in injury or death. Whether saving an innocent man from execution “counts” as “saving from death” is debatable, of course, but I do not encourage Ms. McClain to touch on this question in future revisions – I fear it would dilute the emotional impact of what she has created here.
The Rock and the Hard Place dramatically and forcefully reminds us that the cost of holding fast to your integrity may be the shredding of your heart and soul, a descent into madness. Ask Sophie Zawistowski. Ask Queen Helaena Targaryen. Ask Jeremy Hollingbrook (Attorney-at-Law).
-- Brad Rudy (BKRudy@aol.com #EssentialPlayFestival2024 #TheRockAndTheHardPlace)
https://www.essentialtheatre.com/play/the-rock-the-hard-place/
