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Without Walls
Alfred Uhry

    Without Walls is set in 1976 at the Dewey School in Manhattan. In its freewheeling atmosphere teachers were called by first names and experiential learning was the favored mode. Laurence Fishburne is Morocco, the gifted drama teacher and Amanda MacDonald is Lexy Sheppard, the doting and doted upon teacher’s pet. Into this established relationship comes Anton McCormick (Matt Lanter), changing prep schools, once again, in the Fall of his senior year. Anton is brash and outwardly cocky, but the experienced Morocco, smells the troubled boy underneath. With the sixth sense of a natural teacher, he sees the potential, and also the need for setting standards and limits. “You are nowhere near special enough to be as arrogant as you are, Morocco prods.
    1976 was a time when social, sexual, and even educational mores were undergoing questioning and change; a time when Tony, Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Alfred Uhry taught at a progressive Manhattan private school. Among his experiences he observed the unintended consequences of another teacher’s functioning within the relaxed boundaries of teacher/student relationships. John Dewey was the heralded educational philosopher of the time and he advocated tearing down the walls dividing students from experience.
    Morocco finds real talent in cynical Anton. Anton finds the attention he craves from the often demanding teacher. He is an adolescent who has had material benefits, but is starved by an absent father absorbed in his new family, and an emotionally and physically absent mother. He is the rich little poor boy, looking for limits and positive reinforcement, not empty boosts to self-esteem.
    The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been chosen for the school play--that is after the students’ suggestion of Oh! Calcutta! is found too far out even for the liberal Dewey School. Much has been made of the parallels between Jean Brodie, and Without Walls, but the comparison can be taken too far. Morocco is the demanding teacher within the undemanding school; Miss Brodie is the unconventional teacher with an ultra conservative headmistress. Miss Brodie was ultimately the more menacing character as she overtly brought her private life and radical ideas into the classroom, while Morocco, though having his favored students into his home, is a very private person. But each held his students in thrall to the point of potential danger.
    Laurence Fishburne is a stentorian presence on the Taper stage. He played Othello in a movie version and it comes as a surprise that it is his only Shakespearean credit. It requires no leap of faith to imagine him as the revered drama coach, although interestingly Fishburne himself has never taken a drama class. Early on some of his gestures are a bit camp, but he is ultimately the embodiment of dignity, sustained by his own knowledge of his self worth, and the driving force of the play.
    Lexy is every teacher's darling: hard working; pretty enough; bright, perhaps not exceptional, but near the top for her drive and dedication; the daughter of a successful lawyer father who sits on the school's board of trustees. Amanda MacDonald fits the part perfectly, not prissy, not outrageous, but not a scene stealer either. Matt Lanter carries the edginess of a kid who could fall between the cracks, but with a bang, not a whimper. Attraction between these two characters is a given. Lanter is young, though he has been seen on television and in the movies; this is his first stage appearance, one senses his bio will grow rapidly.
    Alfred Uhry is a thoughtful playwright. There are but three characters in Without Walls, their relationships are complex and the conclusion is not necessarily obvious. Though not the tour de force of Driving Miss Daisy, his award winning play and movie, Without Walls entertains as it engages one to think.
    The 1970’s were a time of experimentation from drugs to open marriage, a time of less skepticism about relations between teachers and students. The 2006 audience watches with the heightened anxiety of  an age when even innocent relationships between students and teachers fall under suspicion, when the mere presence of a male teacher who may pat a student on the back is enough to cause some to reach for a Xanax or 911. One cannot help but think that this pervasive suspicion has to present a barriers to what might otherwise become nurturing experiences.