‘Body’ does disservice to tough topic

The Hartford Stage and Primary Stages production of “The Body of An American” by Dan O’Brien is running downtown at the Cherry Lane. Jo Bonney directs Michael Crane and Michael Cumpsty in this exploration of photographer Paul Watson’s relationship to his photo of the body of U.S. soldier William David Cleveland, who was brutalized and killed by a Somali mob in 1993.

This play attempts to deal with a tangle of explosive subjects. There are no easy answers when terrorism comes to call. Atrocities abound across the landscape of our times, and yet most of us can toggle in or out as we see fit. The horrors are both a world away and a click away. Only a few of us know firsthand the grim frights of combat. Some of our servicemen and women know this all too well, and some of our journalists also have seen the fight up close. Here, the playwright trowels his own personal story onto his treatment of the soldier’s fate. 

The play has been heaped with honors — the Horton Foote Prize, the Edward M. Kennedy Prize, the Arnold Weissberger Award and the PEN Center USA Award — and it also has the bottom-line appeal producers welcome — a cast of two, a simple set and a brisk unbroken 90-minute running time.

And yet, I wonder. Remember how the great and powerful Oz was discovered behind the screen, at his elaborate console of special effects? Playwright O’Brien goes further. He makes this play his story about getting the story, all to the detriment of the core idea promised by the title. We get a kind of buddy tale as the playwright and photographer hunker down, first by email and phone, and finally in person. The actors also switch identities and play other characters in this unraveling journey of author seeking insight from the photojournalist, who must grapple with the implications of a singular horrific achievement.