Dr. Philip Cotton (Reed Birney, background) with his patient, Chester Bailey (Ephraim Birney), in Joseph Dougherty’s Chester Bailey.
Ephraim Birney, who plays the titular character in Joseph Dougherty’s Chester Bailey, mentions in his playbill bio that he “bears a striking resemblance to his co-star.” His co-star is the acclaimed theater actor Reed Birney, Ephraim’s father, and Ephraim is correct about the resemblance, not just in physical terms but also in talent: Chester Bailey showcases two fine actors in a play about trauma, delusion, and regret.
The primary action of Chester Bailey takes place in Walt Whitman Hospital on Long Island in 1945. Chester, a young man from Brooklyn, has suffered grievous injuries in an attack, though not a wartime attack. Chester’s father had secured a job at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for his son, so that by doing war work at home he could avoid the dangers of the actual war. A disturbed coworker with a blowtorch goes on a rampage: Chester is blinded, and loses one ear and both of his hands. But Chester does not accept what has happened—either the nature of the incident or the result. He insists that he can see and that his hands are fine. No makeup or prosthetics are used to indicate injuries, so that the audience sees Chester as he imagines himself.
Chester tries to convince Dr. Cotton that he can hold a glass in his hand, despite having lost both hands in an attack. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Chester’s new doctor is Philip Cotton (Reed Birney). The audience learns of what happened to Chester through his own words but also through Cotton’s telling, so the truth accompanies Chester’s delusion: “Espinoza pointed the torch at Chester’s upraised hands and destroyed them,” Cotton tells the audience, while in the next moment, Chester says, “I was lucky, all I lost was the one ear.”
Cotton also fills in the audience on the details of his own life—his family, his wife’s affair, his affair with his boss’s wife, his commute to and from Penn Station, etc. The monologues are often thematically complementary: “She had red hair. Dark red hair. Dark like mahogany. Like rust,” Chester reminisces about a young woman who sells newspapers in Penn Station and who becomes a major part of his fantasy life; Cotton’s monologue then picks up with the woman with whom he is going to have his affair: “Cora had a martini in her hand. A remarkable martini that collected light from the room. And there was the scent of juniper on her breath; the ghost of previous martinis.”
Ron Lagomarsino’s direction is clear and precise. The setting is Chester’s hospital room, expressively designed by John Lee Beatty with rafters reminiscent of the old Penn Station. Changes of location during remembered incidents are indicated by Brian MacDevitt’s clarifying lighting design and Brendan Aanes’s subtle sound design: the evocation of Luna Park, where Chester used to dance with his former girlfriend, through colored lights glimpsed beyond a frosted glass door at the rear of the room, accompanied by low, half-remembered music, is a particular highlight.
Cotton looks on as Chester delivers a monologue.
Reed’s Dr. Cotton is all repressed, professional exterior but a ball of nerves and longing within; Ephraim’s Chester is relentlessly naïve, since surrendering his outlook on the world would shatter his carefully constructed illusion. He has built a world out of darkness, and no matter how preposterous his lies, his faith cannot be shaken. After the revelation of a shocking incident taking place at the hospital, Dr. Cotton must wrestle with the value of truth versus the temptation of maintaining Chester’s fantasies.
Unfortunately, the play itself, by opting primarily for alternating monologues rather than interaction between the two characters, is leaden and repetitive: the direct addresses drain much of the urgency and emotion from the story, so that something potentially devastating verges on the antiseptic.
The play teases the audience at the outset, with Dr. Cotton introducing himself to Chester, before pivoting to the monologue style. Twenty minutes pass before the conversation between the two protagonists resumes. Their scenes together are excellent, but feel like snippets of a different, better play. It is easy to imagine the contours of Cotton’s life being drawn out through naturalistic scenes with Chester, so that, for example, the audience hears of an affair but not the make and model of the car in which it was consummated. In fact, information is often needlessly repeated as Chester asks the doctor questions about himself.
Every time the play seems poised to unfold as a deft, psychological two-hander between Cotton and Chester, the story reverts to soliloquies of plodding exposition. The best scenes are the ones in which these two first-rate actors are allowed to interact. Perhaps more dramatic conflict between them and less narrative exposition would have allowed the piece to deliver on the emotional weight of the story.
Chester Bailey runs through Nov. 20 at the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 W 22nd St.). Evening performances are Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 7 p.m., and Friday at 8 p.m.; matinees are Wednesday and Saturday at 2 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are available by visiting irishrep.org.
