By Daniel Buckwalter
A Faustian bargain of fame and glory ran headlong into the embrace of enduring love Friday night, the first night of a two-week run of the classic musical Damn Yankees at The Shedd’s Jaqua Concert Hall.
It is the story of Joe and Meg Boyd (played by Ward Fairbairn and Cindy Kenny). They love each other, but their marriage has gone stale. Joe prefers the follow the fortunes — such as they are — of his beloved Washington Senators baseball club. He’s beyond a fan. He is obsessed. Meg, knitting in the opening scene and attempting conversation with her fanatical husband, is indeed the long-suffering wife.
She could have coined the phrase, “We interrupt this marriage for baseball season.” Instead, she joins Joe in singing the heartfelt Six Months Out of Every Year.
Mr. Applegate (Ron Daum) then appears. He is the embodiment of the Devil. Death, mayhem and destruction are his stock in trade. He’s done his work for hundreds (eons?) of years, and he cheerfully notes that he has no soul.
Applegate persuades the middle-age Joe to leave Meg. In return, Applegate will transform Joe into a muscular and athletic 22-year-old named Joe Hardy ( played by Dylan Stasack), who will terrorize the American League and lead the Senators to glory.
Until September 24. That’s the witching hour when Joe loses his soul, when the Senators lose the pennant, agony and despair ring through Washington Senators fans, and Applegate — evil to the core — is over-the-moon happy.
Except that Joe smartly negotiates an escape clause. Then he sings Goodbye, Old Girl, and The Shedd’s engaging production of the musical is off and running. That’s the most I will say about the musical’s plot, but it’s worth watching.
Now, some baseball history.
How bad were the Washington Senators? Charles Dryden, the noted baseball writer who is in the “writer’s wing” of baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, once altered a phrase that originated as a tribute to George Washington, the nation’s founding father, to get to the point. “Washington,” Dryden said. “First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.”
That was in 1904. Many years later, little had changed.
How bad were the Washington Senators? The Senators folded operations and moved to a new city — twice. The first time was in 1960 when they left the nation’s capital for Minneapolis and took the name, Minnesota Twins.
Major League Baseball, in its infinite wisdom (and maybe to cover its tracks with Sherman anti-trust laws), immediately afterward located an expansion team in Washington, D.C. That team also was called the Senators and fared no better. After the 1971 season it also moved, to Arlington, Texas, becoming the Texas Rangers.
The Washington Senators were not lovable losers like, say, the old Chicago Cubs. No, they were simply losers.
So it makes eloquent sense that Richard Adler and Jerry Ross in the 1950s would use the Senators as a prop to write the music and lyrics to the hit musical, Damn Yankees, based on the 1954 novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, by Douglass Wallop.
They had to have to have Heart (Act 1, scene 2), because there was no talent.
There was talent on the stage, though. Besides Fairbarin and Daum, and Kenny and Stasack (who had an achingly beautiful duet in Act 2, scene 2 called Near To You), there was Applegate’s over-the-top assistant (slave?), Lola, played with enthusiasm and professionalism by 16-year-old Kenady Conforth. Sophia James, in the part of the intrepid reporter Gloria Thorpe, also was a standout.
I was particularly struck by the casting of Lanny Mitchell in the character of Van Buren, the Senators’ manager. Mitchell is a stage veteran of song and dance with a strong presence. He could be a coach. And he’s African American.
Baseball’s color barrier had been broken less than a decade before the debut of Damn Yankees (Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers, followed by Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians). The managerial compass would not swing the way of African Americans until the great Frank Robinson was named player/manager of the Indians in 1974.
Whoever made this casting decision deserves applause.
So did the cast. The strong and supportive audience Friday night gave the Damn Yankees players a standing ovation.
For a home run, go see Damn Yankees.
Damn Yankees
When: Evenings at 7:30 p.m. on July 12-13 and 19-20; matinees at 3 p.m. on July 14 and 21
Where: Jaqua Concert Hall, Shedd Institute for the Arts, 868 High St., Eugene
Tickets: $29 to $39 (discount of 35 percent for students with valid ID); available at the ticket office, 541-434-7000, or online at theshedd.org/
Meals: Available at 6 p.m. before evening shows and after matinees, by advance reservation; set menu is $22.75 for adults and $17.75 for children 9 years and younger, extra for wine, beer, and soft drinks
