The Resistable Rise of Rubbish Journalism: Live Girls' World Premiere of Victoria Stewart's Hardball

People think that rubbish journalism is produced by men of discrimination who are vaguely ashamed of truckling to the lowest taste. But it's not. It's produced by people doing their best work. Proud of their expertise with a limited number of cheap devices to put a shine on the shit. - Tom Stoppard, Night and Day

Over the past decade, plays like Black Watch, Stuff Happens and Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom have all in turn taken a journalistic approach to political issues. Plays have rarely been, however, about the moral problems of journalism itself. There are some exceptions, such as NewsWrights United's recent series of Living Newspapers, but in the main playwrights gravitate toward writing about "issues" rather than about the people who report them.

Live Girls' world premiere of Victoria Stewart's Hardball takes the personal approach. Instead of a detached, clinical analysis of "opinion journalism," Ms. Stewart has written about the personal transformation of a female journalist as she moves from the world of newspapers, sources and facts into the brave new world of opinion blogs, hearsay and rumors - the newest version of the old "rubbish journalism" of facile op-ed and manipulative human interest that Tom Stoppard wrote about thirty years ago. Ms. Stewart's scope is not that of David Hare or Gregory Burke. The stakes here are not those of the consequence of civil war or the governance of a nation; they are the stakes of an individual's mortal soul.

By restricting her vision to the microcosmic scale, Ms. Stewart allows all her finest gifts to shine. Her gift for complex characterizations, her ear for intelligent dialogue and her eye for brilliant stage imagery - all these qualities shine in a way that ought to embarass and shame all shiftless, ambitionless playwrights into aiming for an audience's brains instead of their groins. Hardball is, easily, one of the most intelligent plays to debut on a Seattle stage.

Director Meghan Arnette shows an obvious love for the script. Her staging is attractive, with a thoughtful use of multiple acting areas that nevertheless overlap as one scene melts delicately into another, and her sense of timing and pace to highlight the wit in the script is exceptional. The acting is almost uniformly excellent, though Jill Snyder's characterization of Irene, whom Stewart notes should be "capable, efficient" is less like Christane Amanpour or Lynne Russell than she is a burlesque version of Meredith Vieira. Above all, though, the show belongs to Jaime Roberts playing the Ann Coulter-inspired Virginia Eames. Ms. Roberts has been impressive in other productions, with her voice sometimes tending to flatten out at moments of extreme emotion, but she seems to have conquered that minor flaw completely here. Her voice and delivery are clean, evocative and intelligent, and her performance lifts the play. Opposite the cool, imperturbable performances of Shawn Belyea and Shawnmarie Stanton and Roy Stanton's smooth portrayal of the enigmatic incubus Jim Lauderdale, Ms. Roberts deftly balances the complex character that Ms. Stewart has given her and never resorts to anything glib or cheap.

If there is a problem with the play at all, it is that Ms. Stewart has not given her protagonist enough complexity. While the interactions between all the characters are filled with subtext and subtleties at which Ms. Stewart excels as a dramatist, it remains nevertheless all too easy to reduce the motivation of her protagonist to that of a spurned woman with an Electra complex. I highly doubt that is what Ms. Stewart intends, and yet, there it is, virtually impossible to ignore. I do not wish to suggest that an Electra complex is not a valid motivation. It worked for Sylvia Plath in her poetry. I am suggesting only that in a play of such intelligence and complexity it is not enough. One wonders what would happen to the entire play if, during the argument scene at the end of Act I, Dan had uttered one less obscenity.

But this is a talking point, and a minor one at that. Hardball is an outstanding production. That anyone in Seattle even try to put on a play that respects an audience ought to be a cause for rejoicing. That such a play has received such a loving production by a talented cast and crew is enough to renew one's hope that all is not lost in the Seattle theater scene.

Through March 26 // Annex Theatre, 1100 E Pike St, Seattle // Tickets $5-$18, available here