Theatre review: Straight Line Crazy

Playwright David Hare, actor Ralph Fiennes and director Nicholas Hytner reunite at the Bridge Theatre where they last collaborated on Beat the Devil; that one was a monologue, and while Straight Line Crazy surrounds Fiennes with a large cast, it can sometimes feel just as much of a one-man show. Certainly the true story it tells, of a man whose influence changed the face of America's cities in the twentieth century, seems a fascinating one: Robert Moses (Fiennes) was an urban planner, although he hated the term because it implied a lot of theory, not action, and he was determined to get things done regardless of whether the people they impacted wanted them or not. In the first act we meet him in the 1920s, pushing through his plans for Long Island: A playground for the rich, he intends to open up its parks and beaches to the public of New York by building roads, giving them a break in the leisure time the workers are now starting to see as a right.

He's willing to cut corners and break rules, taking on some of New York's most powerful families and forcing them to sell land on the cheap so he can build his expressways. As the title suggests, he's obsessed with taking the straightest line between two points, regardless of what might be in the way.

So in this opening project he overrules all requests to make a tiny diversion, instead buying out an old orchard and gutting a line straight through it. It's the start of an unprecedented run of his own vision being imposed on the whole of New York State, and after 30 years it's more than just trees that have been got rid of to let his expressways through: In the name of slum clearance he's turfed hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and communities, and sent them to live out of sight miles from the city centre. His downfall finally comes when he turns his attention to Manhattan itself and, for motives other than the ones he declares, tries to run a road through Washington Square Park.

The last production on this stage was the technical marvel of The Book of Dust, and Hytner (who appears to be keeping all the directing duties in his theatre to himself this year,) has gone for the opposite aesthetic here: Bob Crowley's set is plain MDF, the designs revealed in paper maps and charts. Despite his insistance that his interest is on the ground and with the people, the world Moses actually inhabits is strictly one of plans and models.

Straight Line Crazy is never actually dull, but it does suffer from being incredibly wordy: While it follows its subject in being monomaniacal about him, it doesn't follow his "action not words" creed, and we get a series of very long scenes of setups and arguments. And as Moses' strategy is to bully, manipulate, or ignore everyone around him until his opinion is the only one to be considered, it does leave the rest of the cast floundering behind Fiennes. The only constants in Moses' life are his unseen wife, and the two senior employees who can stand working with him enough to stay throughout the thirty years. And even then Moses doesn't quite see Finnuala (Siobhán Cullen) and Ariel (Samuel Barnett) as real people, so much so that when the latter ends up first on crutches then in a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis, it's questionable whether Moses even notices.

I found the second act the better of the two as the tide starts to turn against Moses' single-minded influence, most clearly seen in his own office by newcomer Mariah (Alisha Bailey,) who's tasked with liaising with the committee opposed to the developments, but ends up agreeing with their view and standing up to the boss. Most dramatically disappointing is the treatment of journalist Jane Jacobs (Helen Schlesinger,) who's teased in the first act as Moses' great nemesis, but ends up having almost as little to do when she finally joins the story in the second. The only character given a chance to make much impact is New York Governor Al Smith, the only politician Moses had any respect for but one whose wishes he ignored regardless: Danny Webb gives Fiennes a run for his money as the cigar-puffing, bootleg whisky-drinking, self-styled man of the people.

I can see that Hare is trying to play devil's advocate by showing both sides of the argument about Moses, but I still felt the play was a bit more sympathetic to him than I could ever be. By his own admission, the Long Island project that starts his career is more of a power play than a genuine attempt to improve quality of life: It's hard to argue against public parks being a good thing, so making his name with this puts him on the side of the angels in the public eye, and makes it hard to argue with him in future. And even this supposedly democratic project has a major caveat, as despite it being in his remit Moses never designed a single rail line, and deliberately installed bridges too low for buses to go under. The improved access to state parks is only for people with their own cars (read: white people) to enjoy.

And while he couldn't have known at the time how much damage all those cars were doing, Moses' dedication to his straight lines means he never learns that they don't work. As Mariah points out, in 30 years his new roads aimed at eliminating congestion never resulted in anything other than more cars and more congestion. To me Moses comes across as a dangerous arch-conservative masquerading as a liberal, his concern for the common people never extending to thinking they might know their own minds. And the attempts to play devil's advocate can be a bit spurious: Jane Jacobs saves SoHo and Greenwich Village from Moses' plans to demolish them, but wonders what the point was when they end up too expensive for the working classes to live there. Yes, the system as a whole is rigged to screw the poor and minorities, but arguing that the solution is to let a well-organised supervillain screw them in a more efficient way is a bit of a stretch. So for me Straight Line Crazy is a mixed bag: I'm definitely glad to have learned about a corner of history that affects society in ways that aren't immediately obvious, but the way Hare goes about it could have been more dynamic, and certainly could have given other characters more room to breathe.

Straight Line Crazy by David Hare is booking until the 18th of June at the Bridge Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.