Bob and Ro’s production of Ralph Tropf’s “The Shadow Hour”: notes and comments

Last Friday I stopped in to see Bob and Ro’s production of “The Shadow Hour” at the Studio Theater.  I had never been to The Studio Theater, and I was very pleasantly surprised.  A great little theater.

“The Shadow Hour” is a highly nuanced story.  The essence of the plot is that a powerful US Senator (Allen Pontes as “Senator Adam Martin”) has a moment of passion with a young intern (Alicia Thayer as “Christy Connelly”.)  She accuses him of sexual harassment.  The story line is reminiscent of “Twelve Angry Men“, with a little bit of “Law and Order” and a lot of the Monica Lewinsky story.

But “The Shadow Hour” doesn’t resolve into a simple “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict. Not quite.

The social issue the play gets at has been raised many, many times.  It is this: there is no such thing as “consent” when power is not equal.  The senator has social status, and perhaps hubris. The intern is either a naive girl dazzled by power or a manipulative schemer.  The audience gets to decide that for themselves.  But regardless of the motives of either one of them, it is clear that the dominant person is the senator.

The question then becomes what life-choices did the young woman have?  Exactly what kinds of economic and social freedoms were open to her?  Life requires ambition as much for women as for men.  Indeed both sexes are imbued with ambition.  How that ambition is allowed to realize and rationalize is dictated by our social structure.  The senator is powerful by position, the young woman’s power is beauty.  They both used their power.

In a moment of frustration one of the women jurors asks how can a person be convicted of wrong-doing when the lines of conduct are so unclear?  In her mind both the senator and the intern made bad decisions.  Both are guilty of misconduct.  Her subtle point is that the law cannot protect us from harm if we don’t respect basic rules.  Of course whether the rules are inherently honest to begin with goes back to the previous question: who has the power?

The situation is made more complex because the District Attorney (Cameron Johnson as “James Cote”) is ambitious to the point of venality.  For him the case is a stepping stone to greater glory.  He sees a higher profile job, a book deal, movie rights, more money and more power — but he doesn’t see the harm being done to the people around him.

The defense attorney (Ally Krumm as “Leslie Walker”) is prescient about what will happen when powerful Senator meets vulnerable girl, as is the Senator’s assistant (Kris Hunt as “Susan Clover”) but neither of them can persuade the Senator to avoid the danger.

The jury is conflicted because some of them just want to go home, some of them see the echoes of their own pain in the he-said/she-said conflict, and some of them want to see a real measure of justice done but don’t know how to apply the law.

Thus the outcome of “justice” is shaped by our attitudes.  Our “facts” and “truths” are developed, and not at all absolute.

The production was well executed: twelve people on a stage bouncing dialog off one another, lots of quick scene shifts, flashbacks and time-shifts make for an interesting and entertaining evening.

Cheers.

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1 Response to Bob and Ro’s production of Ralph Tropf’s “The Shadow Hour”: notes and comments

  1. Pingback: Christy connelly | Michaelcramton

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