Review: At the Barricades, Lessons From the Spanish Civil War

What would possess a young American to volunteer to fight in a foreign war—to join the Kurdish YPG in Syria or the Ukrainian Foreign Legion? Is it idealism? Adventurism? Stupidity? Perhaps a combination of the three.

James Clements and Sam Hood Adrain’s play, At the Barricades, looks for answers in the Spanish Civil War, which, like Syria and Ukraine, felt like the overture to a larger conflict (and it was). The play, produced by the investigative theater company What Would the Neighbors Say? at Mitu580, offers a clear sense of the motivations that called a generation of bright-eyed young communists to Spain, and the agonizing choices they faced when romance curdled into reality.

It opens like a Ken Burns documentary, with each actor reciting a letter home as soft guitar music plays underneath. Anthony (playwright Adrain) is an Italian-American from Brooklyn raring to fight the fascists, despite (or perhaps in spite of) his pro-Mussolini parents. On the train from Paris he meets Walter (Devante Lawrence), a Missourian who has already spent six weeks on the front. Victoria (Chelsie Sutherland) is a New Yorker by way of Arkansas volunteering in a medical unit. As a foreign woman, she won’t see action at the front, but native Spaniard Elena (Stephanie Del Bino) will. They all serve under Captain Diego (Edu Díaz), a committed communist who still waxes romantic about food and wine (he is Spanish, after all). And, last but not least is Glaswegian class warrior Jim (playwright Clements). What European war would be complete without a Scotsman?

While these international volunteers do see action in Spain (sound designer Stephanie L. Carlin and lighting designer Adrian Yuen bring the war into the intimate black box theater), mostly they stand guard on the barricade and rotate out for breaks. That leaves plenty of time for them to get to know one another, but also for the Left’s favorite pastime: heated arguments about small differences.

These play out in a series of two-person scenes, which occasionally balloon to three or four. Walter curtly informs Jim that class discrimination in Britain is “not the same” as segregation in the Jim Crow south. Elena tells both penis-havers to go read some Marx and educate themselves. A later scene touches on free love and LGBT issues. It’s clear the writers want to use the canvas of the Spanish Civil War to paint a picture about today’s identity-obsessed discourse—but it’s worth noting that that painting is Guernica.

Director Federica Borlenghi stages the text with lucidity, but not much build or tension. This is despite Frank J. Oliva’s environmental set design, which brings us into the encampment, audience seated around cots and behind the barricade. It all feels like an immersive (but still relaxed) museum diorama.

Borlenghi has at least guided the cast to respectable performances. Díaz endows the captain with passion, but also a whiff of suspicion. Del Bino illuminates her character’s inner struggle. Clements deftly alloys joviality to practicality, letting us know that his character is a survivor. Unfortunately, Adrain is miscast as Anthony, giving off a vibe that is far more Newport than Bensonhurst.

Sutherland and Lawrence enact one of the most memorable scenes in the play, she exuding fiery impatience to crush the enemy, which he tempers with some weary pragmatism. The friction between these two characters—both Black southerners and fervent internationalists—creates a spark. It seems like the start of a beautiful friendship, or maybe more. But it can never be, for their differences are just too great—he’s a Leninist and she’s a Stalinist.

The scourge of intervention from Moscow hums quietly underneath the script, if you know how to listen for it. But the playwrights will not spell out for you all the political intrigues and complex internecine conflicts that helped to doom the international brigades and the republican government they supported (for that, George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is still the most readable source).

It’s not a spoiler to say that this story does not end well: No victory, no glory, no curtain call (that an audience at Theater Mitu still seems surprised by this hoary experimental theater convention goes to show that casual theatergoers are still willing to make the trek out to Gowanus—a silver lining in an otherwise dismal affair).

In their program note, the creators express the hope that this play “acts as a reminder that we are stronger in collective action than our oppressors,” but it’s difficult to see how one could come to that conclusion from the events of At the Barricades, which is best viewed as a cautionary tale.