Farragut North
Wed Nov 19 2008
Time Out Ratings :
<strong>Rating: </strong>4/5For political junkies enduring postelection withdrawal, Farragut North is theatrical methadone. Set in the week leading up to the Iowa Democratic caucuses—the launching pad for primary season—Beau Willimon’s skillful drama takes a sausage-factory tour of the electoral process. Its antihero is Stephen Bellamy (Gallagher), the 25-year-old press secretary of an insurgent candidate, Governor Morris (read Barack Obama or Howard Dean); its central conflicts involve not policy but strategy, manipulation and more dirty tricks than at a skid-row brothel.
Doug Hughes’s dynamic production at the Atlantic mines Willimon’s who’s-zooming-who plot for all it’s worth. Gallagher, one of our best young actors, gives a first-class performance in the central role, nailing Stephen’s cocky charm as well as the emptiness beneath it, which becomes clearer during his precipitous slide from grace. Olivia Thirlby is equally impressive as Molly, a 19-year-old intern who is both preternaturally self-possessed and eager to give herself away; the strong supporting cast includes Chris Noth as Stephen’s well-seasoned boss and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as a cunning operative from a rival candidate’s campaign. Yet Farragut North is not as cynical as one might expect; Willimon includes a scene that illustrates Morris’s importance to struggling, working-class voters. Amid the copious vote-and-dagger intrigue, the candidate is somewhere just offstage, trying to hold his ground in the eye of the spin.
Atlantic Theater Company. By Beau Willimon. Dir. Doug Hughes. With John Gallagher Jr., Olivia Thirlby, Chris Noth. 2hrs. One intermission.