Words like riveting and gut-wrenching only begin to describe Stephen Sachs’ ripped-from-the-headlines World Premiere docudrama Fatherland and the performances delivered at The Fountain Theatre by Los Angeles stage dynamo Ron Bottitta and remarkable L.A. newcomer Patrick Keleher.

On January 6, 2021, a 49-year-old recruiter for the extremist antigovernment group The Three Percenters helped ignite the crowd that went on to storm the US Capitol, and though Guy Reffitt himself never entered the building, the handgun, body armor, helmet, radio, and flex cuffs he sported were visible evidence of his treasonous intentions.

A year and a half later, Reffitt became the first Capitol rioter to be sentenced to federal prison, 87 months in all.

What made Reffitt’s trial all the more newsworthy was the identity of the government’s chief witness against him, Reffitt’s 19-year-old son Jackson, who had taken the extraordinary (or the unthinkable depending on who you asked) step of informing on his father to the FBI, a report backed up with text message exchanges and audio recordings he had made of damning conversations with his dad.

Playwright Stephen Sachs has taken this headline-making news story and, using only words culled directly from from court evidence, public statements, and official court transcripts, created a riveting, gut-wrenching work of “verbatim theatre.”

 A writer less gifted than Sachs might have given audiences nothing more than a straightforward reenactment of the Reffitt trial, and Fatherland does feature some of that, as the U.S. Attorney assigned to the case questions Jackson, identified in the program as “Son” and never referred to by name, about the events leading up to his contacting the FBI.

It doesn’t take long, however, for Fatherland to move from the witness stand to flashback sequences that bring the son’s testimony to vivid, shocking life, as “Father” rants against the U.S. government, the Black Lives Matter movement, Antifa, and anything and anyone else he considers un-American, his beliefs enflamed by Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric.

We are there as a son downloads a voice recording app to capture his father’s incriminating words since without them, it would be Dad’s word against his.

We are there as he contemplates doing the unthinkable, turning his father into the federal police.

And we are there to witness what his father considers a son’s ultimate betrayal.

All of this adds up to seventy of the most electrifying minutes of live theater you’re likely to see all year, with director Sachs eliciting two of the year’s most stunning dramatic turns from his electrifying leads.

Bottitta once again proves himself the most shape-shifting of L.A. stage stars, the urbane Brit managing by some miraculous alchemy to vanish inside this righteous, radical, rabble-rouser.

And though Keleher is less than a year out of college, the charismatic Carbondale, Coloradan proves himself an actor with more than enough power and punch to go head to head with a master, the duo’s confrontations among the most explosive and heartrending you’ll see all year.

Anna Khaja is restrained perfection as the US Attorney assigned to prosecute the first January 6 insurrectionist to stand trial, and Larry Poindexter (still shaky on opening night) appears late in the play as a defense lawyer defending the indefensible.

Scenic designer Joel Daavid’s striking, impressionistic set is lit to stunningly dramatic effect by Alison Brummer, with Stewart Blackwood’s pulse-pounding sound design upping the tension and suspense every step of the way.

Danyele Thomas’s just-right costumes range from an eighteen-year-old’s everyday wear to a radical’s riot gear to a lawyer’s courtroom professional, with prop designer Jenine MacDonald giving us everything from jumbo Bud Light cans to automatic weaponry.

Fatherland is produced by The Fountain Theatre, Barbara Herman is executive producer, Dr. Robert G. Meadow and Carrie Menkel-Meadow are producers, and Laurel and Robert Silton are producing underwriters.

Sati Thyme is production stage manager. Scott Tuomey is technical director. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

Adeptly avoiding any trace of polemics by letting its characters’ own words speak for themselves, Stephen Sachs’ Fatherland is Los Angeles theater at its most presidential-election-year powerful.

The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Los Angeles.
www.FountainTheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
February 25, 2024
Photos: Jenny Graham

Tags: Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Stephen Sachs