Having grown up in the waning years of the Cold War, I remember those preparedness drills we practiced in school: crawling under desks to help us survive during a nuclear attack. These exercises came to mind while watching Robert Lawson's Hiroshima: Crucible of Light. I kept wondering if there might be some way to protect myself from the pretentiousness of this multimedia rumination on the A-bomb.
Lawson's theatrical collage blends live music -- director and composer Henry Akona's tonal score for cello is played by Dmitri Friedenberg -- video images created artfully by Jared Mezzocchi but implemented amateurishly on gauze drapes at the back of Amy Davis' bland scenic design, and text, including large portions of Shakespeare's King Lear. As Hiroshima meanders over the course of 75 minutes -- which seem much longer in Akona's unfocused staging -- physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (an overly languid Peter Bean) contemplates his involvement in the development of the nuclear bomb. A character listed in the program as "Woman in wheelchair" (brought to life shrilly by Yvonne Roen) describes the car accident that left her paralyzed, a calamity that lasted as long as it took the bomb to fall on Hiroshima.
Halfway through Hiroshima, Lawson whisks audiences to a post-apocalyptic future, introducing a "nuclear family" living in an underground shelter, rendered by costume designer Isabelle Fields as The Jetsons in Day-Glo colors. Here Mom (Sandy York) attempts to keep peace between children Sparky (Mezzocchi) and Flame (Shelley Ray) until Dad (Joe Gately channeling Robert Young well) gets home. A vampy stranger from Earth's charred surface turns out to be named Enola Gay (Kris Lundberg), and before Hiroshima has ended, Lundberg spreads her arms like the plane itself while Paul Tibbets (Saysha Heinzman), one of the men flying the plane, remembers dropping the bomb.
Theatregoers may well want to duck and cover from this one.
Presented by Untitled Theater Company #61
at Walkerspace, 46 Walker St., NYC.
Feb. 27-March 15. Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com.