Butler Little Theatre’s ‘The Guys’ turns grief into stories and stories into remembrance
Twenty-five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it can be difficult to remember just how personal the tragedy once felt. Before the documentaries, anniversary retrospectives and historical distance, there were the stories about people who went to work that morning and never came home.
Butler Little Theatre’s production of Anne Nelson’s “The Guys” is a small play about an enormous tragedy, and in director Molly Miller’s production, two actors are asked to carry nearly the entire weight of the horror.
Nelson wrote “The Guys” in just nine days, and the speed with which it was created is both part of its historical importance and one of its artistic limitations. The play is very much a work of its time. Set in the immediate post-9/11 period, its New York City is one where grief, patriotism and a sense of collective identity are still raw.
Miller’s production is intentionally stripped down. The setting is Joan’s shabby New York apartment, convincingly rendered with peeling paint, water stains, exposed drywall screws, rusted radiators and thrift-store artwork. There is little lighting or sound design, and the production contains relatively little blocking.
Much of the evening consists of two people sitting in chairs and talking. That can make “The Guys” feel, at times, like a staged reading. But it also places the burden where it belongs: on Laura Crago and Casey Bowser, who use their craft to make the audience listen.
Crago plays Joan, a former journalist, wife and mother who finds herself unexpectedly recruited into the role of writer, listener and reluctant therapist.
Bowser plays Nick, a New York City fire captain who has lost members of his company in the attacks and suddenly has to write eight eulogies for their funerals.
Crago’s Joan provides the show’s necessary counterweight. She listens, questions and gently draws Nick into telling stories that he initially seems reluctant to tell. Crago also handles the play’s many monologues effectively, stepping out into her spotlight to give Joan’s perspective and allowing the audience to see the tragedy through the eyes of an outsider.
Bowser does particularly good work with Nick. His thick old-school New York accent immediately establishes the character, but it is his gradual revelation of Nick’s vulnerability that gives the performance its emotional force. This is a man accustomed to being in charge, now confronting a task for which there is no training: finding a way to say goodbye to eight people he was supposed to bring home.
“The Guys” ultimately isn’t really about writing eulogies. It is about remembrance, and the production’s greatest strength is that it doesn’t try to manufacture emotion through elaborate theatrical effects. There are no grand sets or complicated technical sequences to distract from the central human story. There are just Crago and Bowser, telling stories about people who are no longer there.
How do we remember people after they are gone? For 75 minutes, Butler Little Theatre’s “The Guys” offers an uncomplicated answer, and in Crago and Bowser, the show has two capable storytellers.
“The Guys” runs about 75 minutes, with no intermission. The show runs Sept. 11 to 19, except Sept. 14. Tickets are available at butlerlittletheatre.com.
