A Folded Flag

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

James Cannon’s world premiere of his new play A Folded Flag opened at the John Hand Theatre a week ago with a folded unraveled script, an outstanding cast and perceptive direction.

From Left to Right: Will Brown, Patty Mintz Figel, Travis Goodman in the world premiere of A Folded Flag. Photo Credit: Brian Miller

Directed by Christopher Leo who needed to understand the depiction of space time conundrum, and did, also needed to ask the cast headed by Paul Page and Patty Mintz Figel to float through some disconnected dialogue and disconnected spaces to reveal honest characters swimming in frightened memories, and hurtful secrets. Because they are imaginary artists, they delivered.

Abigail Grigson (Figel) confined to a hospital, is dying. In her various stages of consciousness her mind floats between the current time of the 1991 Gulf War and WWII. With apparent greed, tragedy nipped at her heels with consistent hunger. Her beloved son, Jimmy (Travis Goodman) was killed in WW II He didn’t want to go into the army. He didn’t believe in going to war. He didn’t see the enemy as an enemy. He saw them as human beings just like him, but it was a patriotic time, and he knew he parents would be proud of him, so he went. And came home with a folded flag.

By Abigail’s bedside remaining vigilant is Ben (Page), her son wanting, needing to find a space in her consciousness to tell her something. Ben never knew Jimmy. Although that is one of the secrets hanging fire supposing to be revealed at the end, the play manages to give away all of its secrets by the beginning of Act II. The cast hangs onto their moxy pretending it doesn’t.

Theresa Reid not only plays the Irish, efficient nurse, Erin, who supplies caring tender care for Abigail while sparring with Ben, she also wears the demeanor of Sarah Zimmerman, Jimmy’s devoted love interest. Separating the two characters with well-defined lines she fills in the cracks of the script with heart and soul.

Also playing a double role with calculated ease is Sheri Davis who plays Nancy, a rah rah rah nurse whose mouth runs in high gear while her brain remains stuck in neutral and also play’s Sarah’s mother, Jesse, The Grigson’s next door neighbor whose raw empty emotional basket spills the contents for the neon plastered secret. Reid does a splendid job of balancing the two very distinct characters.

The patriotic attitudes of WW II are grandly displayed by Will Brown as Jack Grigson, with his racists attitudes, American right or wrong, but always America, a blown out of proportion ego exploding into rage when he doesn’t always get what he wants, who treats his wife like a slave, and doesn’t think there is anything wrong with yelling at her to shut up because he doesn’t think she has anything worth while to say, who faces his guilt with an easy way out.

Joe Wilson plays Jacob Zimmerman with a certain unsophisticated bravado that falls apart at the seams when a harsh reality meets him eyeball to eyeball.

With stilted, contrived, manipulated dialogue Act I drags. The stellar cast squeaks out solid performances considering what they have to work with. There is the sense something is going to unravel fast and furious, but it can’t seem to get up the steam to pull the first thread.

Cannon plays with time and space giving the inside outside perspective of Abigail slipping into another universe, finding peace and solace from a world that handed her despair, confusion, abuse, gave to her then took it away. She could visit the pain and wrap it in comfort once she had opportunity to look at it, sense it and feel it within her own context. The one scene where she has Ben and Jimmy standing on opposite sides of the hospital bed as she floats between a once upon a time and real time shows great promise. Poignant, heart-breaking, revealing and disturbing.

Here she has a son, Ben, who knows a truth and aches to confide in her, but can’t capture her in his own time. A woman who pondered revealing truth to him but didn’t think it necessary, who finds herself swallowed by grief permeating every part of her being.

A Folded Flag could do well to find itself a more appropriate title. The title limits the context and reflects only a small portion of what the play is really all about.

Brian Miller designed a delightfully dignified set fostering the time and place to move easily between the 1940s and 1991. With Abigail in the hospital, the 1940s living area stands in the shadows as it forever does in Abigails tortured mind. While the lighting, also designed by Miller, zeros in on the 1940s horrendous episodes, the hospital room looms with poignancy echoing what is to come.

Cannon definitely has a grand idea that begs to be explored. There are times in the play it isn’t quite clear what time period Abigail is suppose to be in as Figel scurries from her living room to the hospital bed while Ben speaks to her.

When Sarah becomes ill when Jimmy returns home from basic training the incident flashes all of the secrets the plays wants to hold until the end. Script-wise, from that point on, its down hill all of the way.

In spite of the roughness of the script, and the choppiness of the writing, the cast does an amazing job of maintaining their characters’ sense of being.

A Folded Flag is not a play that wants to bore its audience with inconsequential conversation even if it does force its actors to delve into character traits this cast in particular provides. This is a play that wants to elicit sympathetic empathy, intrigue, wonderment, surprise twists and turns with each of its characters through disappointment, loss, grief, confusion. It doesn’t, but it could.