Babbitt
Today we went to the La Jolla Playhouse to see another play on our season subscription. The Playhouse put the play on in its largest theater, presumably because the starring role was held by Matthew Broderick, the actor that brought us first War Games and then, his most famous role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Since his fame in the 80’s, Broderick has done some other notable work like in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, but probably his most notable achievement has been marrying Sarah Jessica Parker, the woman who brought Sex in the City into mainstream America. He has a recognizable name and face, so its not surprising that he was cast for the lead in this play. It was a remake of Sinclair Lewis’ award-winning book written a full century ago, Babbitt, a satire on middle class American life. Keep in mind that in 1922 when this book was written and so broadly acclaimed, America was just discovering the American Dream with a chicken in every pot and two cars in every driveway. The country hadn’t really even been tested yet as it soon would be through the Great Depression and then WWII. Given that the Sinclair Lewis book was made into a movie twice, but not since 1934, someone must have decided that there was something in this satire that made sense in today’s American culture.
While I had certainly heard of Babbitt, I don’t know that I had ever read it or even watched one of the two movies, so I was coming in fresh to this play. What I found was a play about an American Everyman who is very regimented in his life choices, but who yearns for more from life. He fancies himself a public speaker and decides that he wants to begin speechifying, so he writes and gives a speech to his local real estate group. The speech is about the culture of the city where Babbitt lives and it is decidedly oriented toward rallying support against an old college classmate of his that is running for mayor on a socialist agenda. Babbitt has an unusual problem. His inherent ideas about culture, politics and economics are far more egalitarian than his lifelong Republican orientation suggests. He finds himself catching the wrong mindedness of his thinking and changing his views in his speech, much to the pleasure of his encouragers, who represent the local business community. Not having read the original Sinclair Lewis prose, I don’t know if the play is being true to those words or whether the playwright has updated the dialogue to represent today’s issues. Babbitt spews anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, anti-union, anti-taxation, anti-government regulation rhetoric which he does not seem to actually believe, but which the crowd seems to want to hear.
That was where I took a turn on the play and even on Broderick’s depiction of Babbitt. The writer and director, and perhaps also Broderick, wanted to make this version of the play speak to American culture and today’s divided nation. But in my opinion, not only did it not work the way the satire must have worked a hundred years ago, I actually found the attempt at satirizing our unusual cultural moment, very upsetting. When there is a small problem, perhaps satire feels funny, but when the problem is serious and seemingly overwhelming, there is nothing funny about it. I find nothing funny in the current state of affairs in our nation and world and I simply can’t find humor in it the way the playwright of Babbitt wanted me to. I convinced Kim, who wasn’t enjoying the play either for her own reasons, to leave at the intermission.
I find it very sad that the world is so divided on the basic issues of fairness and justice for their fellow man, no matter how different they may be from themselves. Babbitt fancies himself a typical Middle Class citizen of his town. He is a real estate broker and he praises the working man and the importance of the working man in the fabric of his community. And yet, at the urging of his Republican handlers, he is quick to say that the working class should be happy with what they get in wages and not lobby for more. And or course, the most ridiculous part of that sentiment is that when he includes it in his next speech, it is met by overwhelming approval by his Middle Class audience that is presumably most disadvantaged by the policy. When you think about it, that is exactly where we find ourselves with the current constituency of the Republican Party. Once you get past the very few number of high-income and high net worth Republicans, the body of the Party is increasingly working class people who can just barely consider themselves Middle Class. In fact, it is those working class people who form the real Trump base that is called the MAGA extreme wing of the Party and is increasingly leading the rest of the Party (particularly in the House of Representatives) by the nose. This is all too like the way the Party members in Babbitt are leading Babbitt by the nose in putting him on the podium to sanctify their antisocial views.
So Kim and I walked out of the theater at intermission. The parking arrangement for the La Jolla Playhouse is in a UCSD garage facility down the hill about a half mile. We had taken one of their special shuttle buses up to the theater, but it was unclear whether they would run shuttles in the middle of the performance for people like us who wanted to leave early. We chose to walk down the hill to the garage instead of waiting for a bus, which was a good decision since we saw no buses pass us. We drove home and talked about what we didn’t like about the play. I didn’t think the dialogue was particularly funny, interesting or modern in terms of being a realistic reflection of how people think and talk today. I found Matthew Broderick to be perfectly believable as a dull and boring middle-aged man, but I just found that I didn’t like him or his character too much. Part of that dislike was clearly driven by the underlying theme, but part of it was also due to the dialogue, direction and acting. It just wasn’t working for me. I’m not sure Kim was as specific in her criticisms of the play, but she was all too happy to leave as well.
I suppose we should be able to enjoy our everyday lives without having to worry about the overlay or national politics much less the goings on in the global geopolitical realm. I spent the better part of my life in that state of bliss (at least after Nixon was gone) through Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama. That was a 45 year hiatus during which lots of things went on both nationally and internationally, but nothing so much that it intruded into my daily existence too much. Now I can’t sit through a play based on a century-old, award-winning satire without being bothered about what it reminds me is so very wrong in our current world. I know some may think that this is about me and perhaps an age-related increase in my level of sentimentality, but I don’t believe that is it. I actually think the the state of the world has become troubling in the extreme and that I have no sense of humor about it. I don’t know whether to thank Babbitt for making me realize all this or scorn Babbitt for intruding on what little peace I can find.