Mr. Lupine (Lee Bainbridge, left) examines his prospective apprentice Wesley Hepton (Jack Stokes) in Philip Stokes’s Shellshocked.
Two-character plays are a tricky thing to pull off. When they are successful, they can be engaging entertainments. Sleuth boasted a great deal of mind games, along with costume changes. In the past season, The Roommate and Dakar 2000 traveled through scene and time changes, but with expectations often upended. Although Philip Stokes’s Shellshocked also relies on mind games, it feels hermetically sealed.
The premise is that a World War II veteran, Wesley Hepton (Jack Stokes), has been sent to the home of a famous local artist in northern England, Mr. Lupine (Lee Bainbridge), to interview for an apprenticeship. A huge easel sits upstage center, so one knows that Lupine’s medium is paint. But from the get-go, something is off. The hefty, red-bearded Lupine, staring at his easel, ignores the knocks at his door, until finally an uncertain Wesley, lost in an ill-fitting suit, enters, having let himself in. Things quickly take a kinky turn:
Lupine: Would you be so kind as to remove your shoes for me? … It would be impolite to taint the floor. … And the socks. There’s a good boy. Be a dear and place the socks within the shoes. Hold them in front of you, facing me.
Mr. Lupine has mysterious designs on young Wesley in the Brits Off Broadway two-hander.
And then Lupine sniffs the shoes and says, “Cherry Blossom, unless I am very much mistaken.” As job interviews go, this one is preposterous. But it’s a familiar part of the cat-and-mouse tactics that provide the engine for many two-character plays. Before long Lupine, who has been advised that Wesley suffers from “shellshock” (now called “post-traumatic stress disorder”), is probing his prospective assistant’s psyche in inappropriate ways.
Lupine: Do you cry often?
Wesley: Occasionally, sir.
Lupine: What occasions are we speaking of? Be specific.
Wesley: I don’t know, sir.
Lupine: Weddings? Funerals? Vacant apprenticeships? What brings tears to those beautiful taupe eyes?
The power of the older man over the younger—and the physical compliments—soon ripens into vaguely homosexual overtures, which, to be fair, were probably not as obviously identifiable in 1946 as they are now. Jack Stokes, in spite of looking persuasively gaunt and careworn (he is the sole support of his mother and three sisters), is handsome enough to be the prey and, for anyone who knows Latin, it’s clear that Lupine is the predator.
Lupine: Do you know what a life model is?
Wesley: I don’t think I do so, sir.
Lupine: A life model is someone who poses for an artist in the nude.
Wesley: I’m not doing that!
Lupine: Of course not, you silly boy. What do you think I am?
Wesley: I would draw the line at that, sir. Even at twenty pounds a day.
Lupine finds ways to exert his power nonetheless, with inappropriate questions:
Jack Stokes’s Wesley is at the mercy of Bainbridge’s Mr. Lupine, an eccentric artist, in the play by Philip Stokes. Photographs by Craig Lomas.
Lupine: Did you witness barbaric acts when you were over there? … Did you commit barbaric acts?
Wesley: I follow orders, sir.
Lupine: Are you good at following orders?
Philip Stokes, who has directed his own work, keeps Wesley staring front for much of the time, with Lupine circling around Wesley, sometimes wheedling, sometimes browbeating his guest. He claims he has burned Wesley’s portfolio, and he pressures Wesley into sharing several whiskies. By turns overbearing and chummy, solicitous and sadistic, Bainbridge’s Lupine is the showier role, as Olivier’s was in Sleuth. But Lupine is a theatrical creation; he never feels like a genuine human being.
The playwright, though, has an ace up his sleeve, and if one hasn’t guessed, it’s that Jack Stokes is his son (father and son have worked together before, in Philip’s plays Jesus, Jane, Mother and Me and Razing Eddie). Jack Stokes’s playbill biography says he “has no professional training,” but he is a natural. Although he is often motionless, his reactions are subtle, expressive and often riveting. Whether he has had acting lessons or not, he has certainly been the beneficiary of his father’s guidance. He’s the secret weapon in what is essentially a showcase of his talent.
Although a sane person would have fled from Lupine’s presence, Wesley, shellshocked or not, is also his family’s only breadwinner, and that keeps him in Lupine’s orbit.
Lupine: I like you, Wesley. You are simple, obedient and you listen. Like a dog.
Wesley: Is that a good thing, sir?
Lupine: Time will tell! Now sit!
Philip Stokes has a few twists—guns are displayed—and there is never any doubt that Wesley will somehow assert himself and Lupine’s evil will be shut down. Shellshocked may not reach the heights of the great two-character dramas, but watching the talented young Stokes is a pleasure.
Philip Stokes’s Shellshocked runs through June 8 at 59E59 Theaters (59 E. 59th St.). Evening performances are at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:15 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit 59e59.org.
Playwright & Director: Philip Stokes
Production Designer: Craig Lomas
Original Score: Brian Morrell
