Harms Way by Mac Wellman

Wellmans theatre is by no means an arbitrarily designed linguistic curio shop. His 1984 essay, The Theatre of Good Intentions, represents a kind of anti-naturalist manifesto in which he attacks the traditional theatre for its manipulation of warm emotions, its impoverished dramatic vocabulary, its fake profundity, its doggedly consistent and well-rounded characters, its fixation on questions of motivation and intention, its habit of explaining evil away and its obsession with victims. It argues that the well-intentioned play succeeds all too well in producing a perfect and seamless summation of itself and its own intentions, and nothing else. (Robinson, p.29)

We cant generally say he wants to write a play about the problem of such-and-such. Its more a question of ideas or images that puzzles him. It seems he wrote a play called Harms Way because he wanted to write a play in which everybody was angry, just to see what that would be like. His work is more a reflection of negativity, because theres a lot more individual energy and associations buried in places you dont want to look. The word harm is a metaphor for a way to describe social conditions, like violence, that this play deals with. Theres violence in love, in building in nature its called the sublime. But the concept of harm seemed more interesting. Sometimes Wellman starts with an image. One play began with an image of two people playing cards at a card table, only all three objects were floating above a river and that was enough for me to write the play. Similarly his other play Second Hand Smoke follows his obsession with how awful the workplace is, so he constructs the worst workplace and the worst boss in the world.

Wellman believes that for him the two main weaknesses with American drama are, first, that its phony--overly dramatic in unconvincing ways. Second, its so sentimental. The trouble with sentimentality is not that its silly or emotional its that its a lie. And yet if you write a play, it almost has to be sentimental---everybody from the producer to the actors will want you to have a happy ending. They joke about it, but its true. (Robinson, p.31)

Harms Way is typically a summary of a killer named Santouche, but along with that it also narrates the story of the many people who are sooner or later trapped in this web, including his lover, his companion, and a folk he meets along his journey. Playwright Mac Wellman uses a mix of sensitive words and colloquialisms from dissimilar periods to give the whole play a slightly lopsided feel. Scram and Hey, bud are thoroughly mixed with Nevertheless, I wish you well. (Wellman, 1984) The story is also intended to keep the viewers lopsided, so that they are never relatively sure of where realism stops and dream begins. A man who claims he is President McKinley demands that Santouche induce a stiff (i.e., dead guy) to bury him alive. A carnival convict turned pimp panders with his Church of Jesus Christ, Fornicator, which is a luminous condemnation of both con-men and prearranged religion. Wellmans operational theme of its all part of the show impels us to inquire much of what we take for granted in our society and culture. Though perhaps not his best play, it is a completely useful look at human contact, incentive, relations, and, most importantly, insight. Wellman does a wonderful job walking a superior corridor connecting absurdist and linear theatre, and this production brings out the best in his play.