Time & Tide

“ Adam Langer – Chicago Reader 6/25/92 – “Jeff Helgeson’s Time & Tide at At the Gallery Theatre is a very polished piece of stagecraft well paced and adequately performed. But to make his point Helgeson relies on a devious implausible surprise ending. The play has something worthwhile (if somewhat hackneyed) to say but it’s said so cheekily that I wound up frustrated rather than educated.

The play itself is a walking cliche. The time is World War II the place is France (“La vie en rose” playing on the radio tells us so). Mireille and Michael are lovers. Michael has brought Mireille chocolate rations and stockings. Michael has to go back to his army unit today but Mireille is pregnant. She says he should stay with her and hide out. Torn between love and duty between personal and global goals Michael and Mireille demonstrate the foolish brutality of war which tears lovers apart.

Michael and Mireille’s dialogue seems lifted from such sources as Casablanca Romeo and Juliet and Waiting for Godot. “Our wills are not our own” Michael insists. “There are larger forces that move us.” Later Michael tells Mireille that those who wage war are playing “”a game of chess with the pieces of our lives.”” Tears are shed. A final embrace is shared. A couple of anachronistic references to a “”new world order”” are made to render the play timely.

And then just before the final blackout, Helgeson introduces his gimmick. The audience gasps as the lights fade and we’re forced to address the author’s contention that each side in a war thinks its own cause is noble