Spy

spy – review

The darkness is suffocating in its intensity. One can hear the distant rumble of approaching carriages. A flash of lightning illuminates the wounded soldier. He braces himself against a jagged tree branch, his eyes wide and bright as he searches the shadows for his captors, shuddering in fear at the thought of his imminent death.
“Spy” is the theatrical adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1821 thriller of the same name, an action-packed play about the American Revolution and the colonists’ fight for independence. Gripping from start to finish, the production tells a captivating story of death and love, of friendship and betrayal. The actors are passionate and sincere, melodramatic without being overly histrionic. The stage setup is effective as well, as the technical staff makes the most out of a limited set—lighting plays a vital role in creating a different mood for each scene. Combine all these aspects together, and you get the perfect backdrop for a thrilling performance.
“Spy” actually opens with a lively song that belies the dramatic seriousness of the play’s subject—the characters prance around and sing about the Revolution, of Patriots and Loyalists, providing some background information on the historical context of the piece. The performance takes a darker turn in the first scene, as we are taken to the headquarters of the British forces, a messy camp setting complete with bloodied corpses laid out on stretchers.
So begins a two-hour masterpiece of convoluted plot lines, of double meanings and undercover operations. The play centers on the character of Harvey Birch, a spy working to sabotage the British army’s plan to attack the Continental Army with a surprise sweep. Interweaving plot lines include the story of Birch’s fleeting romance with a Loyalist girl and his betrayal of his boyhood friend, who chose to side with the British.
The performances are touching and real. The audience can visibly feel Birch’s anger when he finds that the British have ransacked his father’s house and taken his gold, and Louisa’s tears are real when she finds that Birch has left her, forever this time, to go on another dangerous mission into enemy territory. The supporting actors are more than adequate—the drunken barmaid is ludicrous and endearing at the same time, and one can actually see the spit flying out of the British captain’s mouth when he makes one of his many pompous addresses.
The production isn’t completely flawless. Some of the fighting scenes drag on for a little bit longer than necessary—five straight minutes of men chasing each other around with wooden sticks is more than enough for one scene. In addition, some of the plot twists are so complicated that it becomes easy for the audience to get lost, to forget who is on which side, although that may have been my own fault because in the middle of the performance I suddenly became seized with the urge to count the number of buttons on each soldier’s coat.
All in all, I left the theater satisfied and intrigued, motivated to brush up on my rusting knowledge of American history. The performance was riveting and engaging, and the technical managers did an incredible job with the sound and lighting (I jumped when I heard the gunshot sounds). “Spy” was accurate and attentive to historical detail, successful in its attempt to make exciting the generally onerous subject of the American Revolution.