Review: "A Hundred Circling Camps" Renders an Epic and Intimate Portrait of Protest

A Hundred Circling Camps

Written by Sam Collier

Directed by Rebecca Wear

Presented by Dogteam Theatre Project, in association with Middlebury College, at The Atlantic Stage 2

330 West 16th St., Manhattan, NYC

July 12-August 3, 2024

Ensemble. Photo by Clinton Brandhagen.
How is sociopolitical change made? How (and how much) does protest fit into that change? Why do protest movements tend to fracture over time? And how does popular and schoolroom history, with its fondness for individual figures and big moments in combination with its reproduction of ruling-class values–consider, for instance, how Martin Luther King, Jr., is today both reduced to a few lines from a single speech and stripped of any class activism–contribute to our short cultural memories when it comes to protest, as well as to the systemic oppressions which protest challenges? Such are the difficult questions confronted by Sam Collier's ambitious new play, A Hundred Circling Camps, which establishes its base camp in 1932 Washington, D.C., in order to take a long view of some of the patterns and echoes that can be discerned across time in both protest and the state's inevitably similar responses. A Hundred Circling Camps is presented, in association with Middlebury College, by Dogteam Theatre Project, created in 2023 to replace PTP/NYC while continuing Middlebury's tradition of affording young artists the opportunity to work alongside experienced professionals. The show is running in repertory with Dogteam's production of influential Cuban playwright María Irene Fornés's first play, 1961's La Viuda, in a translation into English by director Olga Sanchez Saltveit (La Viuda runs July 10-August 4).
Jose-Maria Aguila and Marita McKee. Photo by Clinton Brandhagen
A Hundred Circling Camps brings us to a Depression-era encampment in the nation's capital, nicknamed Camp Marks, that is populated by WWI veterans and, in some cases, their wives and children, some of whom have come in place of dead or disabled husbands. The group is known as the Bonus Army and is assembling for a march in support of the demand that the government pay them the compensation that they are owed immediately rather than, as the government would prefer, another 13 years in the future. The camp is overseen by veteran Walter W. Waters (Jose-Maria Aguila), who has the support of the wealthy Evalyn Walsh McLean (a fantastic Lynn Hawley) and, as far as possible, police superintendent Pelham D. Glassford (Alex Draper). In the lower ranks, so to speak, we focus on Skip (Francis Price) and Rye (Gibson Grimm), who fought together but had lost touch in the intervening years; Morrow (Zack Malluccio), son of another veteran friend of Skip and Rye, who was killed in a labor march; Lark (Peyton Mader) and her energetic, Amelia-Earheart-loving daughter, Cadey (Maggie Blake); and Sewilla Lamar (Marita McKee), a Black woman who experienced racial violence during her journey to D.C. from the very veterans whom she is traveling to join.
Lynn Hawley and Jose-Maria Aguila. Photo by Clinton Brandhagen
On a set, designed by Mark Evancho, that looks gritty and lived-in, these characters share their hardships and debate their strategy and their chances of success. At one point, Skip, in a great scene between Price and Grimm, laments the extension of the factory mindset into every aspect of life. At another point, Waters wonders how the government can give "millions of dollars to the banks and the railroads" while Glassford reports the city's fears that the vets could "spark something bigger" and that if the vets get financial assistance, then everyone will want it. All of this should sound pretty familiar (as should the United States treating its veterans poorly and the historical accusations by President Hoover of outside agitators in the camp). In addition to external pressures, by the time that Waters invites Sewilla to be an "officer" and to inform on others in the camp, the Bonus Army is facing internal conflicts as well.
Francis Price and Gibson Grimm. Photo by Clinton Brandhagen
However, without saying too much, it is important to note that A Hundred Circling Camps is interested in drawing a bigger picture as well, and we also meet other activists, such as husband and wife Henry (Kayodè Soyemi) and Mabel (a terrific Naja Irvin-Conyers), who have left their children behind and whose marriage begins to strain while they remain at their camp in D.C.; or Jamie (Zack Maluccio), Vee (Bri Beach at the performance we attended), and Dahlia (Aidan Amster), who argue over the president's records, whether voting is worth it, and how long their encampment will last. All of these characters are linked via food–soup particularly becomes a symbol of collectivity and more intimate sites of change–song, and, in many cases, a flawed humanity. McLean, for example, is sympathetic and friendly to the impoverished but will still throw money at them to get what she wants; Waters's leadership edges into narcissism and enforcement of ideological purity; Henry can seem a bit too invested in speeches and meetings; and for Jamie and Vee, hooking up is a side benefit of protest. Accomplished performances all around ably highlight the idiosyncratic complexities of these characters, united as they may be in a common cause, and heighten the production's emotional impact.
Kayodè Soyemi and Naja Irvin-Conyers. Photo by Clinton Brandhagen
Also heightening that impact is some excellent staging when things finally come to a head–the state, after all, always eventually responds with violence, since its authority rests precisely on the threat and enactment of violence. Clearing people with an undesirable message off of supposedly public land (seen most recently on numerous college campuses) is, as the play reminds us, another American tradition, and no doubt the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the ability of the state to criminalize sleeping outside will affect future occupation-style protests. By the end of the show, it is obvious that the "Circling" of its title, a line from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic'' (which also provides the tune for "Solidarity Forever"), possesses a temporal aspect as well, a suggestion of cyclicity that might be summed up in an amended version of the tagline of the Fallout series: "Class war never changes." A Hundred Circling Camps, in contrast, has some great surprises up its sleeve, but, like the camps it presents, it can't stay around in perpetuity, so see it while you can. The past and the future of mass protest in America will thank you.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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