Two Rooms was written in 1988, when news from the Middle East was of Americans and other Westerners being kidnapped in Beirut by terrorists whose motives and next moves seemed unfathomable and unpredictable. Rather than lose currency, Lee
Blessing's play has gained power since then, and not just because of the recent kidnapping-related violence in Lebanon. Blessing wrote of suicide-martyr missions and of a character's surprise when an attack proves to be not the work of Shi'ites or Lebanese who are the focus of government concern but, unexpectedly, of an Arab this more than a decade before 19 Arabs would attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Promethean Theater production in South Florida didn't deliver all it might have on opening night, but there was enough there - with the exception of one odd choice in characterization - to hint that it might improve over its run.
The stage, per Blessing, is spare. One part, with a mat, is the room in Lebanon where the kidnapped Michael, an American who was teaching at a Beirut university, is held captive; the other part is the room in their home near Washington, D.C, where his now-reclusive wife, Lainie, feels closest to him. She's repeatedly visited by a reporter, Walker, who puts off writing her story until he can get a big spread in his newspaper, and a State Department functionary, Ellen, who operates under the theory that "without hope there can be no foreign policy" and urges Lainie to keep quiet in her dealings with Walker in the name of caution. Counters the reporter: "No one knows what will work. All we know is what we've done, and what hasn't worked."
Blessing's play can be lump-in-the-throat good: Michael's aching monologues, Lainie's exhausted confusion, Ellen, the fish-out-of-water bureaucrat; and Walker, the apparently caring but nevertheless ambitious reporter. But the production is too muted, except for its rendering of Walker. We can infer from the play that he's an accomplished reporter in Washington, D.C., working on a story that could have international repercussions and with enough respect from his editors to hold the story for more than a year. Yet in the Promethean staging, Walker comes off as a whining opportunist, gesturing too broadly and looking to make a reputation rather
than to build on one.
