Since Antonin Scalia, the late and famously flamboyant associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, once taught — very happily, by his own account — at the University of Chicago, there is a certain symmetry to the arrival of “The Originalist” this past weekend at Court Theatre from Washington, playwright John Strand’s sympathetic exploration of the liberal scourge and conservative lion.
Scalia, one imagines, would have liked being back in Hyde Park. I just think a man of his heft would have preferred to be at the center of a more complicated play, and a more truthful production. And most liberals — who may well find the characterization here of Scalia as a lovable, kind, brilliant and principled curmudgeon infuriating — would not disagree.
“The Originalist” was a big hit at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and arrives in Chicago under the accessible direction of Molly Smith with its terrific original star, Edward Gero. It begins with Scalia standing alone on a stage, addressing an imagined audience of law students and academics about his love of opera. “There is a sanctity to the score,” he says, “the notes are the notes. This is exactly my view of the Constitution.”
That first scene tells you a lot about Strand’s play, which is dedicated to explaining the roots of Scalia’s conservatism — the jurist insisted that being an originalist did not mean you were an idealogue — in easy-to-understand terms. That meant, of course, that Scalia refused to view the Constitution as a living, breathing document, as in the liberal or relativist interpretation thereof, but as something to be interpreted as intended in the moment of its creation.
Scalia’s enemies often argued that his rigidly expressed philosophy was much squishier and more partisan than Scalia ever cared to admit, as, for example, when he agreed that major corporations (hardly a thing at the dawning of America) had free-speech rights comparable to individuals, or when he found in favor of George W. Bush and against Al Gore during the disputed Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election. But Scalia — for whom consistency was a God-given virtue — held fast to his views of the great document. And, in practical terms, this meant that Scalia usually voted against anyone arguing for rights that he did not think the Constitution originally enshrined, or against guns, which he felt it most surely did.
Since Scalia expounding in a lecture — entertaining as that might be — does not a play make, Strand imagines that Scalia has knowingly hired a young, lesbian law clerk, Cat, played here by Jade Wheeler. Thus Strand gains a liberal mouthpiece who can spar with Scalia for 95 minutes of stage time. While it’s true that Scalia liked to have clerks with whom he disagreed — he needed to warm up on somebody — the idea that he would have knowingly hired Cat, as characterized here, is a device for entertainment, not an act of any veracity. And even if you are willing to go along with that contrivance — this a fictionalized work, after all — it is still mighty hard to buy the exact nature of their interaction, mostly because it just feels so reductive.
This issue is exacerbated by a performance from Wheeler that — with all due respect to the nature of the challenge — just does not work for me. It feels too verbally flat, prepackaged and unresponsive to fellow actors in the moment, and it does not contain the improvised fire anyone would need to battle with a Scalia. Late in the play, Strand introduces a third character, Brad (Brett Mack), a neocon who mostly is there to try to destroy Cat in a way that her gentler boss would not countenance. Watching those scenes requires a lot of credulity. This is a play about Scalia, a man not known for dispensing mercy.
So you’re not getting a profound work of theater. But you are in the presence of a thoroughly enjoyable performance from Gero, who not only looks like Scalia, but who embodies his signature mix of personal charm and rigid intellectual fervor. It’s a terrific piece of acting and, when combined with all the ideas about American democracy that dance and bubble on the surface of this play, it holds your attention and tickles your mind. Far more than most new plays. So huzzah for the power of ideas and a work actually willing to confront the liberal intellectuals in the seats.
For it’s true that the articulation of any conservative philosophy — let alone on the Scalia level — on a nonprofit American stage is rare indeed these days. Strand, I think, had the thoroughly laudable aim of writing a play dedicated to the need to understand and respect the other side, and also to the now-quaint notion that you can personally like your ideological enemies. That for me is the worth of “The Originalist,” which will be fun for some.
But a lot of people who were deeply hurt by Scalia’s rulings will take serious issue.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “The Originalist” (2.5 stars)
When: Through June 10
Where: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave.
Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Tickets: $44-$74 at 773-753-4472 and www.courttheatre.org
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