When Gore Vidal’s “Visit to a Small Planet” opened on Broadway in the late 1950s, it was intended to be a satire of the world’s superpowers in their hunger for control during the Cold War. Although times have changed, the play has held up remarkably well, as can be seen in its lively production at The American Century Theater. The improbable story starts in 1958 in the home of Roger Spelding (Steve Lebens), a television broadcaster who lives with his wife, Reba (Kelly Cronenberg) and his nineteen-year-old daughter, Ellen (Megan Graves). Ellen’s boyfriend, Conrad (Noah Bird), is always at hand.
As the play starts, Spelding is chatting with his friend, General Tom Powers (John Tweel), discussing rumors of a UFO having been sighted in the area. And shortly thereafter, a being from outer space, Kreton (Bruce Alan Rauscher), lands his UFO in the Spelding’s garden, turning their lives upside down.
| Onstage |
| ‘Visit to a Small Planet’ |
| Where: American Century Theater, Theater II, Gunston Arts Center, 2700 South Lang St., Arlington |
| When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday evenings; 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Aug. 6 |
| Info: Free to $35, 703-998-4555, Americancentury.org |
The key to “Visit to a Small Planet” is the character of Kreton. He is different from earthlings, in that he doesn’t eat or procreate and he can read minds, but he looks like a human being and sounds immensely civilized. He is fascinated by the Civil War, which is what he was aiming to observe: his timing is simply off by one hundred years. But despite his cultured appearance, he is dangerous.
Rauscher plays Kreton as an intelligent, charming alien but also makes credible his innate threat. When he realizes that he has missed the Civil War, Kreton decides to set off a war of his own, capitalizing on international military paranoia and the taste for violence among those who dwell on earth. As Kreton observes, war is the “specialty” of earthlings.
Cronenberg makes her Reba into a lovable, fussy housewife, obsessively knitting and changing her clothes. Ellen is cleverly portrayed by Graves as a half-idealistic, half-realistic young woman, the only character able to beat Kreton at his own game. Tweel and Lebens aptly play Powers and Spelding as ineffectual men, unable to control their spheres of influence.
There are parts of “Visit” that could be tightened or even cut. But director Rip Claassen keeps the play moving at a steady pace, clearly illustrating the trouble with egocentric imaginations, whatever dimension they come from, and suggesting that “Visit” would seem dated only if the words “war,” “power” and “control” were dropped from our international vocabularies.
