When Peter Barksdale (Larry Sharp) came on board as president of a small Midwestern college, he proceeded to take the liberal out of liberal arts.
Barksdale is a guy who thinks Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist are not "true conservatives." He's a misfit in academia, certainly -- until the right-wing movement of the late 1970s blossoms with the election of President Ronald Reagan. Suddenly, money pours into the college, and Barksdale becomes an iconic figure among fiscal conservatives and Moral Majority types.
Except there's a problem: Peter Barksdale is having an ongoing affair with his son's wife, Kathy (Dena Tyler).
William C. Kovacsik's "The Barksdale Confession" is a smartly acted drama, with many cleverly written passages. The play is narrated by the cuckolded son, P.J. (Jeff Paul), who presents the story by stepping into scenes from his own memory and imagination. He turns up, for instance, at the moment when his father and Kathy first debate doing the deed -- and he offers his own bitter running commentary.
Kovacsik and director Richard Kent Green ride the play's earnestness awfully close to the edge of comic satire. When Kathy and Peter first meet and start quoting to each other extended passages from Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead," it's difficult to take the scene seriously. Finding the right stylistic balance is tricky for the actors, too, especially Sharp and Tyler, but they succeed. (Certainly they've studied Republican politicos' behavior: Sharp even has a slyly conspiratorial -- but ultimately meaningless -- little wink. It's pure Dubya.)
Barksdale's eventual confession (apparently a sincere one) complicates the simple satisfaction we feel in seeing a pompous hypocrite crash and burn. One goes away still pondering what it is that makes guys like Barksdale tick -- but also what it is that the play, finally, is saying about them.