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Lombardi
Reviewed by Martin Hernandez
The Group Rep at The Lonny Chapman Theatre
Through Sept. 6
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In 1959, after their worst season ever, the Green Bay Packers named an obscure assistant coach as their head coach and general manager. By the end of his seven seasons with the team, Vince Lombardi and his Packers had won five NFL Championship titles – including the first two Super Bowls. One need not be a football fan to appreciate the determination that made Lombardi one of the NFL’s most successful coaches and who came to epitomize the attitude of winning at all costs.
While Eric Simonson’s play merely scratches the surface of this “most imperfect, perfect man,” it reveals enough of what drove Lombardi to demand excellence from his players as well as from himself.
Based on David Maraniss’ biography When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, Simonson’s work begins in 1965, while Lombardi (Bert Emmett) is anxiously preparing for the season’s penultimate game. Meanwhile, young LOOK Magazine reporter Michael McCormick (Troy Whitaker) has come to do a profile on the coach, who is gun-shy after a recent Esquire hit piece. Lombardi and McCormick engage in a battle of wills, which is alleviated by Lombardi’s wife Marie (Julia Silverman) and leads McCormick to engage with the Packers’ standout players. The hard partying Paul Hornung (Ian Stanley) and player representative Dave Robinson (Steve West) are welcoming but Jim Taylor (Christopher Hawthorn) is reticent to talk with McCormick, which is more complicated than just being betrayed by previous reporters.
Through flashbacks, McCormick relates Lombardi’s wealth of contradictions. While devoted to his players, Lombardi drove them relentlessly hard and seethed at the idea of a player wanting more money to play a sport that could lead to a career- or life-ending injury. A devout Catholic who prayed daily for patience, his temper, devotion to football, and perfectionism led to enduring conflicts with his children and his wife (who tells herself her marriage “was the biggest mistake of your life.”) But Lombardi was also intolerant of racial segregation and homophobia, attitudes instilled in him by his religion and his own negative treatment as an Italian-American (he declares it took so long for him to become a head coach because his “name ended in a vowel.”)
Under Gregg T. Daniel’s sturdy direction, Emmett is sympathetic as the conflicted and passionate coach, as is Silverman’s Marie: They convincingly portray a sparring but loving couple long resigned to and comfortable with their marital roles. Stanley, West and Hawthorn thankfully look and act like pro football players, and Whitaker puts the just the right spin on a naïve cub reporter, way out of his league but still holding his own against the zealous force of nature that was Vince Lombardi.
The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Sept. 6. (818) 763-5990, www.thegrouprep.com.
