NY Times Art Critic William Zimmer at NAP - P.A.W. Print

Terror at the White House, a new play produced by Green Light Theatrical Productions, examines a dysfunctional First Family. Its audience is prompted to speculate whether an unpopular war is a determinant or a symptom of the destruction of personal security in America. The play's focus on the First Family's troubles is accomplished in the manner in which an anthropologist contemplates whether water drawn through lead pipes eventually drove the ancient Romans crazy.

The Boni family is beset by the consequences of the father's continuance of an unpopular war begun by his office's predecessor. The president's daughter has been arrested while leading a protest against the war and has professed her intention to aid terrorists whom she considers "freedom fighters." The father cannot reconcile his condemnation of his daughter as a traitor, with his intention to continue to utilize the apparition of his family's sanctity to benefit his political career. The apparition is failing. Is it his fault for continuing the war?

"Why do we make the choices that we do and are they the right choices?" Playwright and Director Armen Pandola, sparingly asked. Pandola, a lawyer "in my spare time," began writing the play late last year. Giving away little else, Pandola proffers that the play was written in the tradition of Greek tragedy.

"Where does the press draw the line when deciding what is best for the public?" asked Pandola, reflecting on how the First Amendment has been impacted by the power of the executive branch to declare war, whereon politicized definitions of right and wrong are as vigilantly contested by media critics as it is irresistibly questionable whether human rights abuses are actually being corrected by America's military. Surprisingly, Pandola doesn't undertake a calling to dramatize the relativity.

"I don't believe that a drama can be effective if it is political," Pandola said.

Manifesting Pandola's seemingly innocuous perspective, the play dramatizes the consequences of personal ambition on the First Family-or on any family, whose patriarch has comeuppance in store.

The first lady, played by Marianne Green, has abandoned her career as a teacher to aid her husband's political rise. Her life reduced to the politicizing of its every sundry aspect-especially her slowly disillusioned dream of helping children, she is disheartened to learn that she cannot separate her personal life from the affairs of Washington. She languishes. Her daughter, played by Alexandria Dilks Pandola, retaliating her family's committing her to mental hospitals throughout her youth, has no intention of letting her parents off the hook. Positioned to disgrace her former lover, the president's young cabinet advisor, played by Toby Mulford, the war provides the daughter with an Achilles heel as convenient as Lear's senility was for Regan and Goneril. Pandola is edging the family's catharsis toward a messy denouement, the foreground of which Pandola has construed its political parallel, a messy, absurd and useless war.

Michael Fishman plays President Anthony Boni. Fishman, who has been acting since 1997, underscores the structuralist value of setting Culture against Individual as binary opposites, by concentrating on highlighting the president as a flawed patriarch, rather than as a despotic chief executive. "I started acting because I needed an emotional release at the time." Fishman agrees that the play is not political. He conceded, "I hope the play will just open up a discussion about what's going on in the world. It is really a play of the moment."

Fishman faults the malaise of American culture for the limited role that he believes theatre has in society. "There's a [better] level of commitment from the theatre audience," Fishman said. While it is easier for an audience to rent a movie or turn on the television than it is to go to the theatre, he continued, Americans, who spend increasing amounts of their time working, believe that an additional commute sadly inspires yet another reason to stay apathetic. Terror at the White House opened on June 9 and runs through June 20 at the Shubin Theatre. Performances occur on Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2:30pm and 8pm and Sundays at 2:30pm. Shubin is located at 407 Bainbridge Street. Tickets may be purchased at www.ticketleap.com. Additional information may be obtained at www.greenlightplays.com.