Mobster's Drama is Stuff of Comedy at Bickford

As the long-running real-life drama of Whitey Bulger approaches its conclusion, a stage comedy inspired by the infamous mobster’s flight from justice is beginning a new life in Morris Township.

Three professional theater companies—two based in Morris County—have teamed up to stage “The Last Days of Mickey and Jean,” which moves this week from the Oldcastle Theatre in Bennington, VT. to the . The production—and the Bickford’s new season—previews Thursday and opens Friday.

(Note: For columnist Anthony Stoeckert's own take on this upcoming show, see the ).

Last year at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Mass., popular playwright Richard Dresser premiered this insightful and humorous play, a fictional imagining of Bulger’s 16 years on the lam from the FBI, presumably with his trophy girlfriend, Catherine Grieg, at his side.

With “Mickey and Jean” still in development, Dresser next teamed with the Bickford, in Madison and the Oldcastle Theatre for a radically different version of the play that ran in Bennington Aug. 19 to Sept. 4. The results struck a harmonious chord both with the audience and critics.

“The original at Merrimack just didn’t end on the right note,” Dresser said in a phone interview about the original production. “I was satisfied with the play, but it left the audience in a bleak place.”

When he sat at his rewrite desk, he sought assistance from John Pietrowski, artistic director of Playwrights Theatre, which specializes in developing new plays, including Dresser’s “Augusta” in 2009.

Pietrowski was tabbed to direct Dresser’s reboot with a cast featuring Duncan M. Rogers and Bev Sheehan, both of Maplewood, and both frequently seen on professional stages in North Jersey. With Playwrights currently without a theater space following its exit from Madison’s Green Village Road School building earlier this year, the Bickford was brought in to complete a rare coproduction of three theaters, and the first-such collaboration between the Bickford and Playwrights.

Dresser—who grew up in the Boston area, where Bulger was an infamous mobster before skipping the law—stresses that his play is not about Whitey and Catherine as notorious individuals, but rather the unique relationship he thought they must have.

“Everyone who ever had a beer with Whitey wrote a book about him. and I read every one,” Dresser said.  “But I was more interested in their relationship, and how they must be dealing in their own way with a lot of issues that affect us all. And however you live your life, you have to come to terms with it. It’s really more about the girlfriend.”

Bulger himself added a sense of intrigue to the production when he .

“When he was captured, I heard from a disturbing number of people,” Dresser said with a laugh. “Personally, I was thrilled when he was caught because if you really got to know the story, there were a lot of people who got hurt [by what Bulger did]. Some people made him out to be Robin Hood. These were violent criminals.”

“[The Bulger arrest] happened right about the time I was reading for the part,” said Rogers, who once directed a production of Dresser’s “Rounding Third” at the Bickford. “It was kind of cool, and funny, and made a big difference from a PR aspect. But in terms of Richard’s play, it didn’t mean very much.”

More important were a new cast, a new ending and Pietrowski’s input as director.

“I went up to see it in Bennington and I was very pleased,” Dresser said. “The cast was terrific. And I really feel that John gets what I do. My work tends to be tricky, and a lot of people miss the point.”

“Richard writes very funny plays, and this is a very funny play,” Pietrowski said. “But there’s a lot more going on. He has great insight into people and relationships, things that the audience can really connect with.”

Still, neither Dresser nor Pietrowski were completely satisfied with the Oldcastle edition, so they took another run at the script.

“I still liked the original ending, which included a big monologue by Whitey, and we found a way to work it back in,” Dresser said. “It’s been a great developmental process and great working with John. Especially when you are rewriting, you really need that trust, and you develop a kind of shorthand.”

“They added some stuff that worked in the first production that was sacrificed for the second,” Rogers said of the creative process that he’s standing in the middle of. “And now it’s back in the third. There were a lot of changes as we rehearsed for Oldcastle —I’m getting new stuff last week and we’re doing the next week. It completely changed the focus of the play. It’s a challenge but a great experience. Fortunately I let go of stuff really easy.”

Rogers also laughed at the irony of being teamed so far from home with Sheehan, a longtime friend.

“I had to go all the way to Vermont to work with my neighbor for the first time,” he said.

As for regular patrons of the Bickford Theatre, who are not often exposed to the developmental process, they can take comfort in knowing that this comedy has already enjoyed two successful runs and comes from a playwright who never fails to entertain while he’s tugging at our hearts and minds.

“And I think it still fits into our mission of giving a second life to great plays,” said Bickford Artistic Director Eric Hafen, who is celebrating his 10^th anniversary leading his company.

“The Last Days of Mickey and Jean” runs Sept. 22 to Oct. 9 at the Bickford Theatre, 6 Normandy Heights Road, Morris Township. Tickets are $20 to $40. For information, call 973-971-3706 or visit BickfordTheatre.org.