he other night my wife and I went to see the newest production of The Custom Made Theatre Company in San Francisco (www.custommade.org). The program was called Finding Sincerity—from the first words of the titles of the two one-act plays being presented: Edward Albee’s Finding the Sun (1982-3) and Mac Wellman’s Sincerity Forever (1990)—the latter notoriously an embarrassment to the National Endowment for the Arts administration of the time. Neither play has aged much—though Albee’s play is elegiac and mournful while Wellman’s is a no-holds-barred frontal attack—on what, exactly? I think the answer to that is what Brando says in The Wild One: Whadda got? The immediate targets of Sincerity (NOT “Solidarity”) Forever are the people to whom the play is dedicated: Senator Jesse Helms and the Reverend Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, “for the fine job you are doing of destroying civil liberties in these States.” But the condition of the play is a kind of sublime, all-embracing stupidity—an immense, riproaring benightedness—and its primary emotion is anger. There’s an old joke: “God is coming, and man, is she pissed.” “Jesus H. Christ” appears here in the form of a large, somewhat foul-mouthed black woman with a suitcase—and pissed she certainly is.

Finding the Sun situates a group of people—Americans—at the beach, a pleasure spot. They are all trying to find the sun, “pursuing happiness” insofar as they are able. There is an older couple, both of whom have lost previous spouses. There is a mother and son (the son is—he hates the word—an “adolescent” and issues of sexuality are accosting him full throttle) and two sets of male-female couples. The bourgeoisie at the beach, having a good time, relaxing. Yet…issues arise. For one thing, these people are for the most part not strangers to each other. The woman of the older couple, Gertrude, is the mother of the young woman in one male-female couple (Benjamin-Abigail); the man of the older couple, Hendon, is the father of the young man in the other male-female couple (Daniel-Cordelia). The two young men in the male-female couples have previously been lovers. One of them announces to the other at the beginning of the play, “I love you.” One of the women, Abigail, is anguished and unhappy. The other, Cordelia, is attempting to accept her situation, but she is beginning to drink too much. Both Abigail and Cordelia know all about the previous relationship between Benjamin and Daniel, and know as well that the relationship might resume. Eventually the older man dies at the beach—peacefully, in his sleep. The anguished young woman tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide. The adolescent boy disappears: perhaps he has run away from his complex, intelligent, domineering, sexually unfulfilled mother. The sun illuminates everything—shows us these people as they are—yet it is also a reminder of time passing. No one is happy.

The Custom Made Theatre Company did a wonderful job of balancing these various forces against one another and allowing us to see everything. Albee’s play is immensely theatrical—far from a slice of life—and Brian Katz’s careful direction allows us to see that theatricality. What we are calling “the sun” (which removes itself at moments) is the lighting design—excellently done by Marci Ring. Calling two of your characters by the Shakespearian names Cordelia and Gertrude is not only theatrical but brazen on the part of the author. At the same time, both the author and the actors are careful to give us a feeling for these people as individuals. Yes, they are deliberate characters—creatures of the theatre in a carefully balanced piece of theatrical fiction—but we are allowed to feel their deep uncertainties, their fears. The play is constantly punctuated by tableaux, moments in which one person delivers a monologue while everyone else freezes—as if someone had stepped out of a photograph to speak to us. The first of these monologues was delivered by Lewis Campbell as Herndon. It was a wonderful beginning. Campbell is a subtle actor with terrific timing—and it is he who first mentions the unwelcome subject of death on this sunny day. Other monologues follow. Both Jessica Jade Rudholm (Abigail) and Brandy Legget (Cordelia) are attractive women, so if they are being treated coldly by their husbands we know it isn’t because of their lack of sexual charm. (Rudholm’s Abigail looks great in a bathing suit!) Benjamin, alas, hasn’t a clue to Abigails’ anguish and is astonished when she announces that he “hurts” her during intercourse. As the mother, Edmee, Shelley Lynn Johnson is simultaneously independent, difficult, and immensely needy; as her son, Fergus (shades of Yeats!), Gabriel Ross manages to be both amused, distant—often funny—and immensely vulnerable: we are happy when he runs off (if he runs off). The wonderful and always dependable A.J. Davenport is excellent as the older woman, and the two young men, Victor Carrion (Benjamin) and Kirk Crist (Daniel) spar and needle each other, never quite able to release themselves into love. Nothing is resolved; everything just continues—or it stops. There are no solutions, only life lived in the eye of the sun.

Fifteen minutes later, we were in a different world.

The lights come up and we are looking at the frame of a car and the two women in it are in Ku Klux Klan get-up. They are talking about how they don’t know anything—which is in fact the case. (The Klan hats make them look as if they have pointed heads!) If Jessica Jade Rudholm was an attractive if anguished young woman in Finding the Sun, she has transformed herself here into a kind of what me worry figure with a broad grin, a clean, unused mind, and a talent for uttering inanities. Her name is Molly. Molly’s friend is Judy, played by Cassie Powell—her equal in chattering. Molly and Judy are residents of a town called Hillsbottom—the “bottom” is surely descriptive—which has been experiencing some disturbances lately. Other paired residents get into the car as the play progresses and speculation is rife. “Sincerity” is the key to everything people are saying but in fact the similar word “stupidity” might be more to the point. There are men paired with women, women paired with women, men paired with men, long, strange speeches, a homosexual episode, speeches exactly repeated by different characters. And then there is Jesus H. Christ, played with great verve and vigor by Brandy Legget, as well as two absolutely terrific fur balls (yes, fur balls) in the persons of Stefin Collins and Richard Wenzel. It has been suggested that the fur balls are “from hell,” which is possible (they are red fur balls); it has also been suggested that they are from the East Village. Possibly they are from The Wizard of Oz—there is a slight resemblance to Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion. In any case, vaudeville lives in their delightful interactions, which include (naturally) long, strange speeches but also threatening claw motions and k-k-k sounds made with their teeth and throats.

To call Sincerity Forever an absurdist work is accurate but doesn’t account for the immense shock of what Mac Wellman and director Jon Bailey put on the stage. This play is not absurd, it is impossible—yet it goes on, completely unaware of its impossibility. It is not a dream or a metaphor: it is a play. Where else but in a play do we hear speeches like these—long-winded, obscene, furious. What is real is the anger which enfolds everything. Sincerity Forever is absolutely furious—and that is not only its message but its condition. It is so furious that it is liberating. The actors are all excellent—I have not mentioned Dan Kurtz, Ross Pasquale, Gabriel Ross (the adolescent in Finding the Sun), Eric O’Kelly and Kirk Crist (Daniel in Finding the Sun). The challenge of such a play is, first, to memorize these speeches but then to make them sing. That the actors are equal to the task speaks well for anything this company is likely to do. Finding the Sun and Sincerity Forever are not easy plays to perform—and while Sincerity Forever is at times very funny it is as a whole an exhausting experience for the audience. There are many moments when we are tempted to tune out—head for neutral space. It is the actors’ task (and the director’s too) to make sure we don’t do that—or don’t do it too often; to keep us close not to the play’s absurdity but to its reality: the fury, the deep anger which is one way of having to live in these United States.