Michigan Journal

Issue date: 9/9/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Marco Airaghi

Now playing at Broadway Onstage is the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy "Harvey," by American playwright Mary Coyle Chase. Elwood P. Dowd (brilliantly portrayed by Dennis Wicklow) believes in the simple virtues of kindness and honesty - he also believes in "Harvey," a 6-foot-1 ½ inch tall rabbit pooka (a faery creature of Celtic folklore). Elwood lives in a society determined to crush his beliefs; where even his own family members stab him in the back to seize control of his wealth and selfishly further their social ambitions. Elwood is a rose in a field of common weeds desperate to strangle him into mediocrity.

Chase's three uncles were born in Ireland, and entertained their niece with stories from Irish folklore. The pooka remained central among these characters. According to legend, Brian Boru (the high king of Ireland, son of Kennedy of Thomond) captured and rode a pooka one night to exhaustion until it agreed to two promises: that it no longer would torment Christians and that it would leave all Irishmen alone unless they were carousing around drunk at night. (Evidently the good King Boru considered all other ethnicities fair game.)

Written in 1944, during one of the gloomiest periods of WWII, Harvey arrived at a time when Americans were constantly bombarded by news of hatemongering, destruction, oppression, and sorrow. With no end to the war in sight, the mild-mannered Elwood Dowd lives a life of calm in the midst of societal chaos. His niece Myrtle Mae (played by Alyssum D'Aoust), obsessed by social stratification, is anxious to ship Elwood off to a sanitarium where bizarre Nazi-like experiments take place.

The medical and legal communities concur that the Elwood Dowd's beliefs should be destroyed. The eminent Dr. Chumley (Joe Urkshus), Dr. Sanderson (Jeff Lindbloom), Nurse Kelly (Sharron Nelson), Mr. Wilson (John Arden McClure) and Judge Gaffney (Jack Abella) concede that Elwood is a charming and delightful chap, but like The Borg are hell-bent on assimilating him into their version of reality, in pursuit of perfection. Dr. Chumley's serum, Formula 977, will make Elwood, as his taxi driver says, into a "perfectly normal human being; and you know what bastards they are!"

Elwood's philosophy diverges from the mainstream. Conversing with Dr. Chumley, he reveals "My mother used to say to me, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, oh, so smart, or oh, so pleasant.' For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant." The juxtaposition of "pleasant" as manifested by Elwood with "smart" as manifested by the legal and medical community becomes the crux of the storyline. Elwood's way of escaping reality provides an alternative to all the obsessions that make people miserable. The story makes us ask ourselves who is more dangerous to society: the mild-mannered dreamer with a vivid imagination or the people who want him to conform to the accepted version of reality.

Continued...

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