The Death and Life of Mary Jo Kopechne
Reviewed by Iris Mann
Odyssey Theatre
Through August 12
On July 18, 1969, Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard for the “Boiler Room Girls.” These were young women who had worked tirelessly for the presidential campaign of his brother, the late Senator Robert Kennedy, who had been assassinated right after winning the California primary in 1968. The party was also attended by several married men, without their wives.
Late that night, Ted Kennedy drove one of the women, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, from the party, ostensibly to help her get back to her hotel. On the way, Kennedy, who had been drinking, accidentally plunged his car off a bridge into the water. Though he managed to get to safety, Kopechne remained in the car and drowned. According to his subsequent statement, Kennedy tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to save her. He did not report the accident until some ten hours after it occurred.
In The Death and Life of Mary Jo Kopechne, playwright Peter Lefcourt has created a fantasy take on the aftermath of that accident. As the play begins, a distraught, somewhat hung-over Ted Kennedy (Thomas Piper) returns to his hotel room in Edgarton, Mass., falls to his knees in prayer, talks by phone to his cousin, Joe Gargan, and then collapses. Sometime later, he is visited by his dead brothers, President Jack Kennedy (Blake Boyd) and Robert (Tim Redmond), along with their father, Joseph Kennedy (James Gleason), who is alive but confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke. The brothers have come from their graves at Arlington National Cemetery to help get Ted out of his jam. As the first act ends, a shivering, wet, and very dead Mary Jo Kopechne (Cathryn Dylan) arrives at the door and asks to use the shower.
During the second act, the brothers try to get Mary Jo to cooperate with them by not returning to the water, so that her body won’t be found and the truth can be massaged.
It is hard to ascertain what Lefcourt is trying to say. He states in the program that the play is “an attempt to give her a voice and to restore to her, if only posthumously, the life that was so abruptly taken from her.” But the story focuses more on the cover-up than it does on Kopechne.
And, while a voice at the top states that the author makes no claim to authenticity, and a certain suspension of disbelief is required, Lefcourt’s play demands that suspension almost ad infinitum. We can accept that the dead brothers might be able to physically touch and interact with living people, but would the dead Kopechne need a shower? And would a “ghost,” or whatever these dead characters are, have to return to the grave or the place of death in order for the remains to be there?
The playwright also rehashes old gossip, some of it true, some questionable – Jack’s sexual relationship with Marilyn Monroe and his incessant womanizing; Joe Kennedy’s affairs with Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson and Claire Luce; Ted’s possible tryst with Kopechne. These among other tidbits now seem timeworn.
There is also the fantastic claim by Jack, delivered as fact, that Lee Harvey Oswald shot him to prove his manhood to his Russian wife, Marina Oswald.
Even more fundamentally off-putting is the lack of dramatic tension during what should be a highly charged, suspenseful scenario, even for those who know the ultimate outcome of these events. The responsibility for this failure lies with both the playwright and his allusions to scandals that by now have become clichés, and director Terri Hanauer, who might better have paced the proceedings so as to stress the tragedy of the events.
As for the actors, they do the best that can be expected, given the limitations of the material. The most well-defined character is that of Robert Kennedy, and Redmond is every inch the quintessential lawyer and fixer-in-charge. He slides easily into the resentment his character harbors over not being sufficiently credited for everything he did to help his brother Jack become president.
But the role of Jack Kennedy is less defined. Despite this, Boyd manages to come across as a fun-loving, good time guy, who is vain and somewhat weak, but who cares deeply about the direction in which the country is headed and regrets many of the mistakes he feels he made. Boyd has an infectious charm that helps to warm the audience towards him.
Veteran actor James Gleason, as the now infirm patriarch of the Kennedy family, has to contend with a caricatured role. That he manages to make his character credible is a tribute to his skill.
The roles of Ted Kennedy and Kopechne are the most ill-defined. He starts as a childish weakling concerned mainly with saving his reputation and his career but — after an absurd conversation with the dead young woman during which she makes political demands on him — expresses his intention to become a more serious, dedicated public servant. Piper tries valiantly to immerse himself in the moment-to-moment emotional shifts given to his character; indeed, when Ted phones Kopechne’s parents and informs her father that she is dead, the actor creates what is probably the most genuinely moving moment of the evening. During that phone call, an ominous hush that pervades the air — a sense of the disaster that has taken place. Still, Piper can hardly rise above the rest of the material given to him.
Lefcourt has Kopechne fluctuate from one attitude to another, without a coherent core. Dylan is physically reminiscent of the young woman and competently fulfills her character’s somewhat illogical twists and turns, but — as is said of Kopechne in the play — she deserves better.
Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles; Fri –Sat., 8:00 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Aug. 12. (323)960-4418 or www.plays411.com/maryjo. Running time: 100 minutes with one intermission.
