PLAY ABOUT STERIODS NEEDS SOME STEROIDS

Balboa Park -- "I would have understood it more if I knew what they were talking about," said author/publisher Sam Warren of Hillcrest about Back, Back, Back; a play appearing through Oct. 26th at the Old Globe Arena theatre in the San Diego Museum of Art building.
That's a fatal criticism of a stage play.
If the audience doesn't understand the story as it unfolds on stage, the show is dead! You had to be a serious baseball fan to comprehend this show.
Neither Warren nor I even understood what the title of the play was about, or what it meant. And, after seeing the play, I still don't.
Allegedly, the play was about the use of steroids in major-league baseball. But, the characters in the play never used the word steroids. It was directed by Davis McCallum, written by Resident Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak and performed in the Museum of Art's James S. Copley auditorium and retains the intimacy of the former Cassius Carter Centre Stage of nearly the same size.
It appeared that handsome Joaquin Perez-Campbell was cast in the lead role of Raul based primarily on his beautiful body: tall, trim, smooth and with very a muscular chest.
His acting as "bad boy Raul," who was kinda dumb, was superb and far better than the other two characters of Kent (Brendan Griffin) and Adam (Nick Mills); neither of whom were standouts in their roles.
The most memorable scene was when Raul was undressing in his locker room, and stripped down to his jock strap. He was great to look at.
The script was far too wordy. Perhaps that was intentional, but there were several times that the wordy dialogue got in the way of story telling.
The only applause from the theatre-in-the-round audience occurred after a very long and windy diatribe attacking the news media, and specifically sports writers. Otherwise, the nearly half-house audience was largely quiet, except for a few giggles now and then.
The show ran for nearly two hours without an intermission. The applause at the "curtain call" was only polite.
I didn't understand the title of the play.
I didn't understand much of the story.
And, when the show opened, the Stars Spangled Banner was playing, and nobody in the largely seniors audience stood up.
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Copyright by Leo E. Laurence, leopowerhere@msn.com (619) 757-4909