Play recalls Benedict Arnold's treachery

NEW YORK, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- In a time of renewed patriotism in the United States, Benedict Arnold's famous act of treason in the Revolutionary War would seem to be an inappropriate choice of subject for a drama.

Perhaps Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson wrote "The General from America," now playing at the Off Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater, for the very reason that patriotism is again under scrutiny in a nation faced with imminent war against Iraq. Love of country can be a fragile thing in certain circumstances, Nelson's play remind us.

The enemy in 1779, when the play opens, was Great Britain, the "mother country" rather than a threatening Middle Eastern regime. Arnold, a general in the fledgling Republic's military campaign to win independence from the British crown, is the hero of a suicide mission at Saratoga, N. Y., that prevented British forces from capturing the Hudson River Valley and dividing the New England colonies from the South.

George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, has appointed Arnold -- crippled by a leg wound in the Saratoga battle -- military governor of Philadelphia, seat of the Continental Congress that was waging the rebellion. When Arnold is accused by rebel politicians of profiting from the job, Washington transfers him to command of a fort at strategic West Point, N.Y., an obvious demotion, and issues a public reprimand.

Smarting from shame and the "exile" imposed on him by his old friend and mentor, Washington, Arnold takes up residence at West Pont with his young Philadelphia heiress wife, Peggy Shippen, and begins plotting to turn over the fort to the British at a time when Washington is making an inspection visit. How Arnold's treachery was exposed when his go-between, British Major Andre, was captured, is now an American legend.

Playing the difficult role of Arnold, a man too proud and ambitious to endure scorn, is Corin Redgrave, brother of Vanessa and Lynn of the British acting dynasty. He played the role of Washington in the original 1996 production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has performed nine plays by Nelson, making him the most performed living American playwright in the English theater.

It is a case of perfect casting, for Redgrave at 63 is a large and weighty presence on the stage in a larger-than-life role. His Arnold is not in the heroic mold but tends to be self-justifying hypocrite, boastful of his military prowess and avid for rank and deference. Like most people, he is a man of ordinary intelligence and mixed motives.

Redgrave gives Arnold's weaknesses away in every movement and gesture but still provides the traitor with enough humanity to make him almost sympathetic in his response to Job-like torment. His loving relationship with his wife, though he probably married her to advance his social position, is tenderly depicted in contrast to his treatment of his faithful sister, whom he takes for granted.

Redgrave is at his best when he wistfully dreams of a bright future for himself and his wife in London, where he expects to be celebrated for his notorious deeds as the general from America who tried to shorten the war and save lives on both sides. That he was no more admired for treason in the British capital than he was in America is made explicit in the closing scenes. Congress is shown cheering the news of his death in London in 1801 as the final curtain falls.

Nelson, whose last Broadway hit was James Joyce's "The Dead," has stuck to the historic facts in writing "The General from America," but he has given it a contemporary sensibility and cast some of the language in modern slang. Even Redgrave has Americanized his English accent so that it blends with the American English of the rest of the cast members.

They include Yvonne Woods as Peggy, an underwritten role to which she brings little focus, Paul Anthony McGrane as a naïve but attractive Major Andre, Nicholas Kepros as Sir Henry Clinton, the gruff British commander with a soft spot for Andre (surely an invention of the playwright), Jesse Pennington as Alexander Hamilton, Washington's capable aide-de-camp, and Kate Kearny-Patch as Arnold's sister Hannah.

Only Nelson's characterization of Washington and Jon DeVries acting in the role strike a false note.

Audiences will find little to recognize in this eccentric impersonation of the somewhat aloof, lock-jawed Father of Our Country. DeVries is an excitable, slack-jawed busybody, weary of battling with Congress to keep the Revolution on track and exasperated by his underlings. He is totally lacking in Washington's natural nobility and gravity as recorded by most of his contemporaries.

Douglas Stein's clever set with a series of back panels that become doors onto various unseen locales evokes the Colonial period without being showy, and Susan Hilferty's costumes and military uniforms appear authentic. Nelson has directed his own play with a sure hand. This production was first staged earlier this fall by the Alley Theater in Houston, co-producer of the play with New York's Theater for a New Audience.