Spoke Man

By JEREMY GERARD

An American Place Theater presentation of a play in one act written and performed by John Hockenberry. Directed by Wynn Handman.
 

All good journalists are irritants, and John Hockenberry is no exception: Theater people remember him as the guy who sued Jujamcyn Theaters in 1992 because the paraplegic reporter had the audacity to try to see a performance of "Jelly's Last Jam" and the staff at the Virginia Theater gave him a hard time in its wheelchair-unfriendly environment.

In the subterranean First Floor Theater at the American Place, Hockenberry flies onstage in that wheelchair and opens with a few stunts, rolling with one hand, then two, then none, then -- announcing "two disabilities at once"-- rolling with his hands over his eyes. You are primed for an evening that will be funny, edgy and poignant, and the NBC News "Dateline" correspondent delivers on all those counts, though only sporadically in a show that more frequently goes soft and mushy.

Actually, Hockenberry lays his cards on the table early: "I'm bitter and angry," he says, only moments later copping to the ruse. Anyone accustomed to the familiar voice on National Public Radio -- persistent, a little pushy, but insinuatingly confidential, as if talking only to you -- is likely to be taken aback, not by the wheelchair but by a script that, despite some three years of development with director Wynn Handman, remains too warm and fuzzy by half.

"Do you hear the spokes?" he asks, striking them with a guitar pick, "or do you just see the wheels?" I must confess, I have no idea what is being asked of me here.

When Hockenberry is describing the experiences of daily life -- as a reporter , as a regular person negotiating the streets of places as disparate as New York City and Tehran (less disparate for the disabled) -- his descriptions are acute and poignant. Paralyzed after a car crash during a hitchhiking trip at age 20, he misses walking, "the phantom metronome of stride, stride, stride"; in his wheelchair, there are "crunching, teeth-rattling cobblestones," and the Upper West Side is worst of all because the people there have "too much self-esteem" to be generous and helpful.

Though Hockenberry spends some time contemplating the questions people have about his condition, he's coy about answering them. You will not find out, for example, how one goes about covering a war in a wheelchair, though you will be treated to marvelous impersonations of New York cab drivers and how their ethnicity affects the way they communicate with a mobility-challenged passenger.

You will also have to endure the author's lengthy impersonation of a smart bomb. And when Hockenberry launches into reveries, several about a hopelessly retarded uncle with whom he feels a sad, persistent affinity, you can't help but think there's something rather too evasive going on. Despite the acuity of everything around him -- Joel Reynolds' simple, evocative backdrop of shards of police barricades embedded in what appears to be rice paper; Chad McArver's subtle lighting changes --"Spoke Man" rambles. There's only so much a person can take of the "push, push, glide" of life in a wheelchair. We want more information from Hockenberry, and he wants to be Rod McKuen.

Handman is a master at drawing provocative monologues out of provocative people as different as John Leguizamo and Roger Rosenblatt. This one needs work.

Set, Joel Reynolds; lighting, Chad McArver; stage manager, Judith M. Tucker; production manager, Josh Weitzman. Artistic director, Handman; executive director, Susannah Halston. Opened March 3, 1996, at the American Place Theater. Reviewed Feb. 29; 74 seats; $ 30. Running time: 1 HOUR, 25 MIN.