Men On Boats at Homegrown Theater

Or: It Doesn’t Get Any Wetter Than This

It was a quintessential American Legend. Ten souls setting into unknown country, on a river of unimaginable power, suffering hardship, fighting madness, and looking death. This was John Wesley Powell’s expedition into the heart of the Grand Canyon; a mighty journey for the hearts upon it to test their mettle and their manhood. Except, in Jaclyn Backhaus’s weird and wonderful retracing of those oar strokes, the whole cast is crewed by women.

There’s nothing terribly showy about this. No overt parallels are underscored, no pronouns get tweaked. The script just specifies the whole cast must be women, and Baukhous launches out, following Powell’s account of the journey as close as she can, lifting passages of journals, or more often supplying a modern-day dialog for the explorers. And so by doing very little, she accomplishes so much: there’s nothing to point out that the expedition are women, but there’s nothing to point to them being men either. They are merely explorers, some abler than others, left to their own devices in boundless wilderness; and just as able, tender, contentious, and magnificent as any woman have been, given the opportunity to set her place in history.

There’s Powell (Veronica Von Tobel) herself, one-armed and fever-eyed, a force authoritarian cheer hiding the party on as sure as the current. Von Tobel’s masterfully casual timing serves well in reaping laughs but knows how to throw herself off tempo, when clinging to a rock face by her chin or trying tearlessly to snuff the sparks of a mutiny. Powell’s right and left hands, William Dunn (Jamie Nebeker) and John Colton Sumner (Amanda Baschnagel) both add backbone to the crew, Nebeker a feline energy, pacing back and forth, easily delighted with the joys of exploring, Baschnagel laid-back, easily interjecting wry comments into the action, but as an artist also possessed of a sterling presence, that gilds the scenes (particularly in a beautifully awkward meeting with a Ute chief Tsauwiat (Rachel Dickerson) and his wife The Bishop (Jz Marrero).

Dickerson and Marrero also bring their dangerous jollity to the brothers Howland O.G. and Seneca respectively, while cultivating a touching bond between them, while Hall (Noel Nelson) and Hawkins (Suzi Martinez) match their duel persnicketiness to the “Party Boat” (complete with secret handshake). Then theres young Bradley (Emily Broglia) who’s loquaciousness endears him to all of us even as it tees off her team-members, and Old Shady (Patti O’Hara), Powell’s elder brother. O’Hara has created a magnetic power in Old Shady, a chorus of ticks and twitches and a surprisingly moving display of codgeriness and frosty cootnitity. And then there’s Goodman (Elizabeth Rathbone) Englishman and Fish Locutor (and dropping his delicate refinement to become the charmingly evil storyteller, Mr. Asa).

While Baukhaus has pushed and pulled at the taffy of her historical figures, giving them foibles and secret wishes, but runs the adventure pretty much as it happened. You get the sense of the length of it, the folly of it, the mortal discomfort without it once becoming tedious. Admittedly it’s hard to follow the lines of dialog when the boats are on the water (a splendid dance between movement, lights, music, and suspender boats) with much of the dialog lost, but it was worth it to feel the ferocity of the river, from above, beneath, and dead on the level.

Most of all Men On Boats supplies a sense of wonder, of coming at the country with new eyes, a sense of appreciation. There is an awe that shines from Von Tobel’s face, and kindles in different shades from every member of her crew as they paint across plain boards and lantern light, the wonders of the Colorado and the Canyon that enshrines it. It sparks that awe, that engagement from the first splash on the river, and it keeps it going, and a sense of the flow of water, timeless around you, right up until the last quiet breath.