"Insignificance"

April 13, 2019 — It's around 1954. The Professor (A. J. Ditty), with wild hair and sloppily dressed in Princeton sweatshirt, baggy pants and no shoes, is going over his research papers when there's a knock on the door. When he opens it, in barges the Senator (Thomas Daniels), with slicked-down hair, carrying a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses. Loud, crude and overbearing, he tries to force liquor on the non-drinking Professor, lectures him on the communist menace and tries to convince him he should testify at the Senator's House Un-American Activities Committee.

The Senator eventually leaves, but soon there's another knock on the door. This time it's the voluptuous blond Actress (Kelsey Andrae) in fur coat, huge sunglasses, figure-hugging white dress, carrying balloons. Andrae plays the part to the hilt, and I was especially impressed with the dialog she had to memorize for her explanation of highlights of the special theory of relativity to the Professor, using toy locomotives, flashlights and other props, and much to the Professor's approval, she gets it right.

Yet another knock on the door turns out to be the Actress's husband, the Ballplayer (Landon Shaw). Incensed at finding his wife in the Professor's room, he becomes belligerent and threatening, striking fear into the Professor and the Actress. In a long harangue, he pops bubblegum and boasts about his thirteen World Series rings.

The characters are not named, but those of us who were around in the fifties, or those who are students of the period, should recognize the Professor as Albert Einstein, the Senator as Joe McCarthy, the Actress as Marilyn Monroe, and the Ballplayer as Joe DiMaggio. All performances are first-rate. The part of the Ballplayer, written as a loud, bellicose bully, is not the suave, gentlemanly DiMaggio we remember, but it's appropriate for this play, and he does share the anguish and heartbreak Joe must have known. Nick Cochran had a brief non-speaking part as the Senator's tall, grim aide.

They all return in the second act, in climactic scenes, offering some insights into what motivates them. This is all fiction, of course. There's no record of these four ever meeting in a hotel room or anywhere else, except of course Monroe and DiMaggio who were briefly married. It's an often funny, sometimes poignant, very entertaining presentation.

The play, titled "Insignificance" by Terry Johnson, was staged at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse (the Winni) in Meredith, New Hampshire. Neil Pankhurst directed, Lesley Pankhurst designed the costumes and Dahlia Al-Habieli the set.