Night Screams

By T.E.K.

A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER by Thomas Babe

It may be something edgy and vindictive in the spirit of contemporary society that causes young American playwrights to relish scenes of abrasive confrontation. The duel may be one of words, the sly techniques of a psych-out or blunt violence. All three tactics are present in Thomas Babe's A Prayer for My Daughter, now at Manhattan's Public Theater. The setting is a police station during the midnight-to-dawn shift. Two dope addicts, Simon (Laurence Luckinbill) and Jimmy (Alan Rosenberg), who are also homosexuals with bisexual experiences, are pushed into the bleak room in handcuffs. They have robbed a woman of $26. One of them has slit her throat.

The two detectives intend to nail the killer, short of slitting his throat. As one of the cops explains, punishment must precede the trial since the judge will probably release "scum" like them. The older detective, Kelly (George Dzundza), is built like a bull elephant and when he talks he trumpets. The younger detective, Jack (Jeffrey De Munn), is a fanged snake who hisses and strikes.

Each detective mauls each culprit. Simon takes it with world-weary stoicism, his eyes like stagnant pools. Jimmy cries like an abused child. Eventually, the tortured and the torturers seem more like kin than enemies. Playwright Babe skillfully evokes their dawning camaraderie. Where he goes wrong is in tagging on the murky moral that all men are brothers or, perhaps, unisexual.

If the characters seem sordid, the caliber of acting redeems all. It is ensemble work of the very first order; in this the four men are truly brothers.

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