Review: Men Without Shadows
By Aaron Leichter
nytheatre.com - April 2, 2003

Theatergoers in the mood for a serious think about the ethics of occupation should check out Men Without Shadows, performed by Horizon Theatre Rep at the Flea Theater’s downstairs space. The playwright is Jean-Paul Sartre, who elaborated the philosophical doctrines of Existentialism while fighting against the Nazi Occupation in WWII. This play, written in 1946, watches as a group of captured French Resistance fighters are tortured by their own countrymen. It’s not a complex plot, it’s awfully wordy and occasionally melodramatic. But this company acts with urgency and passion that overcome the “boulevard” conventions.

Ironically, the best written and performed roles are two of the collaborators, played by Jordan Lage and Rik Walter. They’re humanized by their tired bemusement at their own actions. Of the entire ensemble, these two seem the most like men at war: the contradictions and compromises, the guilty complicity and the hollowness of concepts like duty and honor. (Unfortunately, Sartre makes a third collaborator about as complex as one of Indiana Jones’ Nazis.) The one woman, Hillary Keegin, transcends her role as the mother/lover by acting with restraint for as long as the script allows her to; unfortunately, she has to break down and cry before her final exit. Keegin looks like she realizes this is a romantic compromise that runs against everything her character has said and done up until that point.

As a socialist, Sartre avoids making any one character the hero: when one prisoner collapses under torture, his comrades are ashamed with him, not ashamed for him. Director Simon Hammerstein seems more comfortable with this communal theme than with Sartre’s suggestion that existence drives people apart. Hammerstein does a good job staging action rather than theme, most notably in a torture scene that’s a stomach-clencher (several patrons excused themselves). Michael V. Moore’s set turns the boxy space into a human peepshow or moral experiment, while David Zeffren’s lighting providing the atmosphere of a pressure-cooker.

Although Men Without Shadows doesn’t measure up intellectually to Sartre’s tidy thesis-play No Exit, its relative sloppiness works in its favor: it’s less of a concept and more of a play. Sartre’s shortcomings as a playwright are still apparent, especially his inability to show instead of tell. But Hammerstein and company overcome these flaws. It’s still very intellectual, but it’s also dramatic and timely.