Happy performs a dance sequence. Image from 600highwaymen.org.

This Great Country, presented by 600 HIGHWAYMEN on the night of Thursday July 11, was an odd and very entertaining mix. The play was performed in a small annex of the South Street Seaport Mall on Pier 17, as part of the River to River Festival.

The play, which looked as if it were set up more like a dinner, used ingenious methods to hide its minor scene changes: the rearrangement of a center table and some chairs to guide character placement and interpretive dances. These dances at first seemed part of the actual retelling of the story, as if it were an odd artistic choice, the sort directors make solely for the sake of trying to be “different.” However, as you continued to observe the action, you noticed that the dances and movement of chairs and tables were used as the set up for the following scenes.

Beyond the interesting dances and scene shifts, the portrayals of the every day working man actually became every man with race and age shifts for the character of Willy, indicating the change from the 1940s and the modernization of the play. The environment led to a unique atmosphere in which the reaction of the audience members became part of the play as well.

All in all it was a great play. My only complaint would be the age of young Linda being too close to that of young Biff and Happy; but this was only a minor casting issue in an otherwise perfect play.