My name’s Bill W., and I’m an alcoholic.” Spontaneous response: “Hi, Bill!”
No, we weren’t at a 12-step meeting but at a recent performance of “Bill W. and Dr. Bob” at the Soho Playhouse, complete with a “sober” bar. Many in the audience took it upon themselves to talk back to the play’s first line, then repeated their greeting after Dr. Bob’s introduction.
Clearly many in the seats are in familiar territory. But the two lead characters onstage aren’t your average recovering drunks: They’re the guys who started Alcoholics Anonymous.
Sam Shem and Janet Surrey’s drama centers on how Bill and Bob figured out that a good way to abstain from drinking is to help others do the same.
Taking place mostly in 1935, the show often feels as if it had been written then rather than in 2007. Its sincere earnestness, its straightforward storytelling could be lifted from a golden-age Hollywood biopic, complete with uncritical approach.
Bill Wilson (Patrick Boll), a New York stockbroker, spends most of the 1920s and early ’30s tethered to a bottle. Eventually he realizes he’s ill and struggles to find a cure — which eludes him even after he sees the light with the Oxford Group, a Christian organization that believes in submitting to a higher power to control your cravings.
On a business trip to Akron, Ohio, Bill meets Bob Smith (Timothy Crowe), a surgeon with an equally destructive drive to drink.
At first Bob is skeptical that faith can help him, boasting about his “strong belief in nonbelief.” But he quickly comes around to Bill’s views.
Under Seth Gordon’s direction, the actors are restrained, while occasionally indulging in some deliciously garish touches — Dr. Bob makes faintly obscene sounds taking greedy gulps of liquor. Denise Cormier and Deborah Hedwall are fine as Bill and Bob’s wives, respectively, while Daniel Pearce and Liz Wisan effectively play various supporting characters.
The show sticks to a simple narrative as it retraces Bill and Bob’s excellent adventure. This doesn’t leave much room for dramatic tension or insights into, say, the connection between faith and self-help.
The biggest irony of all also goes unmentioned: Addiction finally did get the better of Bill — this heavy smoker died of emphysema.