We catch Professor Bill Dudley during one of his lectures in the Ivy League college where he teaches military history. "Since the earliest days of men, conflicts have always been about legitimacy," he tells his students. Dudley's entire life is about to fall apart over a question of his own legitimacy.
T.J. Brady's thought-provoking play, making its world premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company, uses Dudley's story to ask some thorny questions about educational ethics and the value system of American higher education. Dudley has a Ph.D. and has enjoyed a very successful teaching career. His latest book is up for a prestigious award, and he seems happily settled into a second marriage with the dean of faculty at the college where he teaches. Should an academic misstep he took years earlier be allowed to destroy all that? Should he have tried to fix the problem at the risk of jeopardizing his academic life before it even got started?
The play's four characters represent different aspects of academic life, and their interaction raises other questions. Megan is an undergraduate who plagiarized her paper to get a good grade. She has little interest in learning; she just wants to get into a good law or business school. Dudley decides to give her a second chance. "As an educator, I hoped to show her some mercy," he tells his graduate assistant, Ron, who is angered by Dudley's decision. Ron is an African American who has had to earn everything. He has a military background and believes in the importance of regulations, while Dudley espouses creativity and flexibility in education.
Then there's Jessica, Dudley's wife and the college dean. Should the problem in his past be allowed to affect her career, and what will it do to their marriage? At one point, she suspected he had a secret; as dean, did she have a duty to investigate?
At the heart of the play is the tension between Dudley's vision and the realities of higher education. "I think college should be a place where students learn to learn," he explains. He longs to teach students who "want the knowledge for the pure joy of knowing it." Dudley is like the two-dollar bill of the play's title: an oddity that has unique value, but people tend to throw it away because they don't understand its worth. Another telling symbol is the statue of Custer that Jessica gave her husband; he was a general defeated by his arrogance and refusal to listen to the advice of others.
"Two Dollar Bill" is a talky play, but its clash of conflicting ideas and Matt August's taut direction often give it the tension of a thriller. The cast is enviably even in shaping real and dynamic people from its characters. The amount that Dudley says challenges actor Mark Zimmerman, but he covers any stumbling and stuttering with a professorial air, and his touch of arrogant assertiveness makes the character less sympathetic and more complex. Lesley Fera's Jessica deftly balances her personal pull between supportive wife and conscientious dean. Corey Allen is authoritative, self-possessed and a bit self-righteous as Ron, although he is often hard to hear. And Ephie Aardema gives Megan a bratty, entitled attitude all too familiar to anyone who has taught.
James Wolk's stately set with its army of books and wooden paneling looks classically Ivy League, and Michael Gilliam's lighting turns red and freezes characters like statues at the ends of scenes. Aaron Swenson's costumes capture the cross-section of individual styles at a university.
"Two Dollar Bill" is an interesting and intelligent play that foregrounds individual stories against a backdrop of current academic issues. It gives its audience plenty to think about after they leave the theater.
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'Two Dollar Bill'
Pioneer Theatre Company debuts another new play, one that tells an appropriately academic story.
When • Reviewed on Jan. 15; plays Mondays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Jan. 30, with Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.
Where • Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. University St., Salt Lake City
Tickets • $25-$44; $5 more on the day of the show. Half price for students K–12 on Mondays and Tuesdays; 801-581-6961 or www.pioneertheatre.org
Running time • One hour and 45 minutes (including an intermission)
Alexander Weisman | Courtesy Professor Bill Dudley (Mark Zimmerman) and his graduate assistant, (Corey Allen), in TJ Brady's play "Two Dollar Bill."
