‘if it wasn’t for you, we might all be eating with chopsticks.”
Those comforting words are offered to a haunted-looking man in “Radiance,” Cusi Cram’s new play that marks the latest misstep by the Labyrinth Theater Company.
As we soon learn, he’s none other than Robert Lewis (Kohl Sudduth), the Enola Gay co-pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese. And as provocative as the subject is, this wan effort seems content mainly in providing a gloomy noir-ish atmosphere rather than exploring his lingering guilt.
It’s 1955, and Lewis has wandered into a Los Angeles dive bar to kill time before appearing on the television show “This Is Your Life.”
The barkeep is the voluptuous May (Ana Reeder), who’s clad in a skintight cocktail dress and is sleeping with the sleazy, married bar owner (Kelly AuCoin). May watches as Rob, getting steadily drunker, resists the desperate entreaties of the TV producer (Aaron Roman Weiner) to come to the theater, where the show — complete with a group of seriously disfigured female victims dubbed the “Hiroshima Maidens” — is being taped.
“I was going to tell you,” Rob awkwardly tells May after she realizes who he is. “I just never know how to bring it up in casual conversation.”
The play is based on real events, as a fact sheet handed out as you leave makes clear. But this doesn’t make it any more engrossing. Flashbacks depicting Lewis’ interactions 10 years earlier with his commanding officer, a New York Times reporter and the nurse he loved are full of dialogue that might have appeared in a ’40s war movie: “I gotta go drop a bomb and end a war,” he tells the nurse before heading off to his fateful mission.
Under Suzanne Agins’ claustrophobic direction, the actors — all, except Sudduth, in dual roles — deliver assured performances. And scenic designer David Meyer has created a seedy bar setting so detailed, it would probably do solid business if left open after the show. Even so, “Radiance” isn’t very illuminating.