Ulysses on Bottles

Play (2012)

With Daniel Berger-Jones, Ken Cheeseman, Jeremiah Kissel, Will Lyman, Karen MacDonald

The man, Ulysses, has been arrested for illegally coming into Gaza on his makeshift watercraft. He presumably brings Russian literature, his way of contributing to the quality of life in a place subjected to awful conditions. He is being represented by an Israeli lawyer, who first tries to get him off the hook, then works with him as his convictions become clear.

Interwoven with this tragic and sublime story of Ulysses and the lawyer is the ridiculous story of the lawyer’s wife trying to badger him into performing at a benefit in a tutu, which the lawyer desperately tries to resist doing.

A young associate of the lawyer, a real shark, shows how heartlessly legalistic one can be, and an unspecified consultant, perhaps a member of the Israeli security services, demonstrates both how awful the conditions in Gaza are, and subsequently manipulates Ulysses into taking a position he avoids, fearing the cost to his conscience.

This short play, performed here with an abundance of acting talent, is effective as a contribution to recognizing the problem in Gaza and acknowledging the vivid differences between conditions of life there and in Israel.

The main character, Ulysses (played with conviction by Ken Cheeseman), exhibits passionate devotion to his literary cause, seemingly innocent enough in its conception, but deemed illegal and unacceptable by those in Israel who prosecute him.

More central to the play’s knotty core, however, is Jeremiah Kissel’s lawyer, a shrewd negotiator who, despite his legal finesse, demonstrates, with increasing degrees, the vulnerabilities of conscience. In the final scene, after negotiating until he can negotiate no longer, he sadly recapitulates the chorus of Que Sera Sera – Whatever Will Be Will Be which he had been put up to performing in that embarrassing tutu, now with a tragic, not a ridiculous, demeanor.

In that lawyer character lies the play’s suggestion of Israelis on the border in all sorts of ways, torn between pure legislative dealings and the realization of the calamitous situations that hover around them.

For such a short play, the amount of stage time devoted to the tutu episode is way way over. Its point would have been far more powerful with a more subtle angle of approach. The more compelling moments in the encounter between Ulysses and his lawyer with the dialectical engagement on legality and conscience might well have been expanded to fill that space.

Apparently, in the original production, the character of Ulysses was intended to be an Israeli Jew, but, in the course of that production, seemingly due to casting that role, the character became an Israeli Arab, which remains the case in the current production.

The lineup of acting talent here is signficant. In addition to Cheeseman’s and Kissel’s considerable talents, noted actor Will Lyman plays the internal security agent, and the veteran American Repertory Theater actor now widely seen on other Boston stages, Karen Macdonald, plays the lawyer’s wife. Daniel Berger-Jones, familiar to Actors’ Shakespeare Project attendees, puts out a good, aggressive version of the young shark lawyer.

This play is a noble attempt to open a window on a difficult and problematic subject. Though it could well benefit from some narrative reworking, in the hands of these fine actors its best and most suggestive side shows itself prominently.

– BADMan