Recently some colleagues were talking about full body scanners at airports. One said she had no problem with them at all and joked, “What’s more important than security? That’s right—NOTHING.”
How far would we go for security? That’s one of the questions at the heart of Sharr White’s “Sunlight, “at the Marin Theatre Company. The play’s a drama about a family, but what provides the drama isn’t an affair or a character’s sickness or loss of money. Rather, what they are all arguing about and can’t come to terms on is torture, the abuse of power, and how to go on with their lives after Sept. 11.
Kevin Rolston, who plays Vincent, does a brilliant job of making his character, the dean of a law school who writes memos supporting torture, likeable. Certainly more so than his father-in-law, Matthew(Charles Dean), the president of the university who yells at both his long term assistant, Midge (Wanda McCaddon), and his daughter Charlotte (Vincent’s wife played by Carrie Paff) to pour him drinks and pick up the phone for him, keeps lists of enemies and is in general, a nasty, vindictive man.
White has done a wonderful job of exploring the relationship between these characters—how Charlotte feels torn between her father and her husband, how Midge resents being usurped by Charlotte taking over her role, how Matthew has no real idea he’s done anything wrong because he’s so convinced he’s on the right side, and how Vincent wants to fix his marriage—while at the same time taking on the topical subject of torture memos and making it timeless. When everything changes, what do you do?
Interview with playwright Sharr White
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