Actors Ed Asner and John Savage lead a small, sturdy cast through a one-night-only stage reading.
By Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
Two generations of disillusioned war veterans cut from the same rough cloth bicker and butt heads in “An Omelet For Vinnie,” an astute, wisely observed, antiwar play by California-based writer and English instructor Jayne Lyn Stahl, that was brought to life, for one night only, in a stage reading by Malibu Stage Company the end of August.
A stellar cast, headed by iconic TV actor Ed Asner, infused the four-person play with powerful performances.
At the Aug. 27 engagement, Asner, winner of two Emmys and a Golden Globe for his role as Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” needed little introduction. The actor has appeared on two of the most successful miniseries of all time, “Roots” and “Rich Man, Poor Man,” and he enjoyed a huge career bounce voicing old man Carl Fredericksen in the Disney/Pixar animated blockbuster “Up.”
Best known for his roles in “The Deer Hunter,” “The Onion Field,” and “Godfather III,” John Savage joined Asner on stage, along with MSC regular Oscar Best, and, in her MSC debut, Sarah Phillips.
In “An Omelet for Vinnie,” Vietnam vet Cross (Asner) is still haunted by the ghosts of war while his injured son Ray (Savage) has survived fighting in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Ray’s young daughter Charity (Phillips) is joining the Marines, to the consternation of both dad and grandpa.
“Omelet” launches with a very clever, line-blurring opening when Asner first appears on stage, and he asks the audience, “Is it cold in here or is it me? I’ve never seen a nightmare so sparsely furnished.”
Since this was a reading, sans set designs and props, and not a fully mounted play, there was a quick moment where the audience is uncertain if this is Asner or his character Cross talking.
The bulk of the play is set at a halfway house where the testy, sarcastic Cross irritates the hell out of the facility’s Cook (Best) by sneaking in some whiskey and violating the house’s rules: “No drugs, no booze and no broads.” Cook ultimately gives Cross an ultimatum to leave, but Cross does not want to go, and Ray is having a hard time convincing him to come home. In the process, Cross and Ray sling barbs at one another, accusing each other of ruining their respective lives.
“This is where my tax dollars are going?” Ray quips in disgust, looking around Cross’s room at the halfway house.
“What tax dollars?!?” Cross fires back. “You haven’t worked in years! Work to you is a metaphor!”
For the longest time, Cross refuses to leave his perch. “I’m in a stand-off with time,” he snaps. “Well, guess what? Time is winning,” Ray responds.
Cross and son engage in all manner of familial and spiritual debate. When Cross describes a problem as “biblical,” Ray says, “You think everything is biblical. You see a dirty diaper and you think of Genesis. Remember when you called it ‘the Old Testicle?’”
Seen-it-all Cross drips with cynicism toward the folly of war and the Halleburtons and Blackwaters and Goldman Sachses who ultimately profit from our misguided foreign policy. Meanwhile, the lives of enlisted patriots are ravaged.
“They call it survival,” Cross pontificates on war. “What do you call it when you’re back on the street? What do you call that?”
Actors Best and Phillips delivered in their smaller roles, but it is the two leads who shined most brilliantly. Asner’s humorous, well-honed curmudgeon was counter-balanced beautifully by the compelling Savage, who infused Ray with personality. Ultimately, their survivor characters have, via their independent experiences, come to the same conclusion about war.
“War doesn’t eliminate evil,” Ray says. “It just spreads it around.”
If “Omelet” says anything, it’s that, generationally, the details may change but the senselessness of war stays the same.
“We took the same vows you did,” Ray tells his father. By the play’s end, Ray breaks down after striking his daughter when she threatens to forward the family continuum by enlisting.
“War isn’t fighting for your country,” Cross observes at one point. “War is fighting for the privileges of the few at the expense of the many.”