KC Confidential.com

Politics is not a pretty business. The process is compared to making sausages more often than… well, making sausages.

Beau Willimon’s new play FARRAGUT NORTH (now through December13 at the Unicorn) takes another dark view of the proceedings. It’s an interesting story, well-acted across the board. The fact that it doesn’t catch fire and boil over with dramatic tension may have more to do with the predictable nature of this sorry segment of society than the playwright’s best intentions.

Willimon introduces us to Stephen Bellamy (Mark Thomas in a galvanizing performance), twenty-five year old wunderkind and political junkie, in the lobby of the Des Moines  Ramadadoubletreeholiday Inn. It’s two weeks until the Iowa Caucuses, and Bellamy,  the brilliant media director of an underdog, idealistic candidate, is working the room. Governor Morris is going to give us back our country, Bellamy boasts to anyone who’ll pay attention, making sure that the TIme’s political correspondent Ida Horowicz (Manon Halliburton, who does a nice job here) gets an exclusive piece of the action.  

Bellamy got his shot on this Presidential campaign from one of his biggest fans, wizened political operative Paul Zara (well played by Bruce Roach). When Stephen gets a call from the other camp, he takes the meeting, setting up the dominoes that will fall in Act 2 with Zara. Sex, drugs– the alcoholic variety–and rock and roll (compliments of sound designer Merlin Salisbury) spice up the proceedings, like a salad and dessert. But it’s that juicy steak in the middle of the plate –the politics and power– that’s the main course. Like rabid dogs, these obsessed players are going to rip and tear to get as much meat as they can.  

You need characters at different points in the life cycle to make this story work, and the partnership between the Unicorn and UMKC’s graduate student program developed for FARRAGUT NORTH delivers on that score. Grad student Thomas brings a Topher Grace enthusiasm and innocence to his performance as Stephen Bellamy. You think the fresh-faced kid can do anything, which makes his fall from grace the more compelling. Bellamy spins and spins until he’s caught in a cocoon he’ll really only understand years later, when he’s become a wizened operative himself. 

Kat Endsley as the ubiquitous cute intern and Sam Cordes as Bellamy’s toady assistant do a great job, in no small part because they are just the right age for their roles. Endsley plays the bedroom scenes as honestly and comfortably as I’ve seen an actor do it on a KC stage. While Sam comes to his acting chops more obviously– he’s Scott and Lisa’s kid, after all–he does a terrific job playing wallpaper until it’s his turn to join the fray.

As good as these students are,  the pros more than hold their own. It’s great seeing Bob Elliott back on a Kansas City stage.  One of the best actors this town has ever produced– his ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST at Missouri Rep was to acting what George Brett’s run at .400 was to hitting– Elliott finds all the right notes of treachery, then honesty as the guy running the other campaign. Bruce Roach’s performance makes you feel every bump in the road on those hundred disappointing campaigns he’s backed. When he warns Bellamy, his protege, about a life in this corner of politics, you know he’s been there, done that.

Willimon’s play begins at a nice rat-a-tat-tat Mamet pace but gets gummed up, I’m afraid, with a few too many words on the page. It’s well-plotted; and there’s at least one “ah ha” moment that makes you glad you were paying attention. All in all, though, I missed a couple of more twists and turns– something to take it from interesting to fascinating. You know, Aaron Sorkin stuff.

And I’m not sure what the point of the title is– we learn Farragut North is the DC metro stop where lobbyists and other DC insiders get off to go to work. Willimon wants us to believe this is some kind of end of the line– hence the train sounds that punctuate the evening–but he doesn’t do anything more than introduce the idea. Frankly, compared to slogging through the snow in Iowa or New Hampshire, a cushy job in DC doesn’t sound like such a bad post-campaign pay-off.

But don’t try telling that to Stephen Bellamy. He’s backing the right guy, and he’s gonna take him all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately, as we’re reminded in FARRAGUT NORTH, grown-up pitfalls and shell-shocked, once idealistic young men and women line the highways and byways along that route. It’s not only the road to Hell that’s paved with good intentions.