'The Dangers Of Electric Lighting' Lights Up Luna Stage

The Luna Stage Theater Company's brilliant new play, "The Dangers of Electric Lighting," crackles with electric excitement from the very first imagined encounter between the famed Thomas Alva Edison and the less famed Nikola Tesla.

The subject is electricity and the historic, late 19th century "Battle of the Currents"— direct versus alternating  — between the two men.

The subtext is a deeper kind of power struggle — the kind lit by demons from within; the kind that leads to dark deeds.

Everything about this world premiere drama — acting, writing, directing, set design, staging, lighting, sound, specially composed music and costumes — is megawatt.

And because it is written by the super, young playwright, Montclair based Ben Clawson, there is a strong current of wit throughout.

Some background: Luna Stage Artistic Director Jane Mandel commissioned Clawson, 26, of Montclair, to write a play about Thomas Alva Edison, West Orange's best known resident. The inventor/ businessman moved to Llewellyn Park in 1886, soon establishing laboratories and factories on Main Street. (You can visit the Edison labs; a replica of the Black Maria — the world's first movie studio — and Edison's Victorian style mansion for the price of admission to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Luna Stage has a special package that includes show and park tickets and dinner at the Manor.)

"It was a difficult decision to move Luna Stage from our long time home in Montclair to a new theater in West Orange," Mandel said after the play's Sunday afternoon performance on Oct. 23.

"I wanted to present a play that addressed West Orange, and I thought about Edison," Mandel said. "I knew Ben would bring something fresh, exciting and deeply human."

Clawson, whose connections with Luna Stage go back to his undergraduate years studying acting and playwrighting at Montclair State University, agreed to the request. "When someone says, 'we want you to write us a play,' I always say yes," Clawson said. Clawson is best known for his very hip full length plays and shorter theater pieces on contemporary themes for StrangeDog Theater Company, where he is a founding member.

"I first went to that compilation of folk knowledge — 'Wikipedia,'" Clawson said. He was attracted to Edison's failed struggle to maintain control over the distribution of electricity in America. Several book purchases and library loans later, Clawson brought the first incarnation of the play to Mandel and Cheryl Katz, Luna's director of new play development and recently appointed associate artistic director. "Dangers" first had a table reading and then a well received script in hand reading at one of Luna's first Monday "New Moon Reading Series." Then, as with this full production, the director was the acclaimed, West Orange-based John Henry Davis.

As to the cast, "I had written a half of page of this play and I saw that Jon Barker had to play Tesla," Clawson said. For the challenging role of Edison — the character is in most every scene — Mandel encouraged the nationally known director James Glossman, who lives in Montclair, to return to his acting roots.

Glossman and Barker deliver bravura performances. Glossman's Edison is All American 19th Century invention and self invention; accomplishment and self promotion; arrogance and maddening charm. Barker's Tesla is polyglot, learned, formal — a man of scientific learning, method, rigor and moral conviction.

It's a combustible match up, and one given extra spark by the outstanding supporting actors: B. Brian Argotsinger as Harold Pitney Brown, an Edison toady who delights in performing the darkest deeds; Frank Anderson in dual roles as Edison's adversary George Westinghouse and alter ego Benjamin Franklin; and Joseph Langham (who often performs his wonderful, funny singing/songwriting at Luna) as Charles Batchelor, Edison's longtime associate, not afraid to tell the great man when he has gone too far.

And Edison goes too far.

If the first impression of the ill kempt Edison and meticulous Tesla is Oscar and Felix — Glossman bares a distant resemblance to Walter Matthau — the relation between Edison and Batchelor evokes another fictional pair up: Orson Welles' Charles Foster Kane and Joseph Cotton's Jedidiah Leland.

The parallel with "Citizen Kane" is telling. As written by Clawson, superbly directed by Davis and interpreted by Glossman, Edison has the outsized personality, now-lost late 19th century American sense of humor and sense of infinite possibilities of the younger Kane.

The show evokes the exhilaration of a first viewing of "Citizen Kane," too. Go see for yourself.

"The Dangers of Electric Lighting" opened Friday, Oct. 21 and runs through Nov. 13. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25-$30 with a $5 discount for those 62 or over and can be bought at the Luna Stage website: www.lunastage.org or call (973) 395-5551. There will be special "Talk Back" discussions after the Thursday, Oct. 27, performance with Dr. Paul Israel, director and general editor of the Thomas Alva Edison papers at Rutgers University. The theater is handicapped accessible. Call for information on hearing devices and a special open captioned performance on Sunday, Nov. 6.

A special dinner at the Manor Restaurant, admission to the Edison Museum and show package are available for $75.00; see website for details. Luna Stage is at 555 Valley Road in West Orange's Valley Arts District.

Insider Note: The purpose built Luna Stage Theater complex at 555 Valley Road in West Orange is the cornerstone of the West Orange/Orange Valley Arts District (VAD) which includes galleries, restaurants and music venues. This Friday Oct. 28 starting at 6 p.m., enjoy a pre performance turn around the monthly VAD ART LOOP which includes an opening reception for "Origins, The Celebration of Self Expression" at the nearby at Arts Unbound Gallery, 544 Freeman Street. See www.valleyartsdistrict.org