Theater review: 'Kirby' takes a good swing but doesn't deliver

Playwright Syl Jones takes a mighty swing at the legend of Kirby Puckett, and, while he gets some wood on the ball, Jones does not knock it out of the park. Perhaps it's best to consider "Kirby" a sacrifice fly that advances our understanding of the Minnesota Twins great, but leaves us standing at third base as the inning ends. OK, no more baseball metaphors.

Jones begins with an intriguing proposal in "Kirby," which opened Saturday at the History Theatre in St. Paul: the dichotomy between baseball's forgiveness and life's vengeance. A wise old coach (Terry Bellamy) tells us that great hitters only reach base one-third of the time, a success rate that wouldn't cut it in the real world. Combine that notion with the public's unwillingness to let its heroes fail, and we see the vise Kirby Puckett found himself in when his post-baseball conduct unraveled.

Jones's telling, though, struggles to push this point of view. The herky-jerky first act, particularly, never finds a rhythm, at times settling into a chronological groove and then bouncing into thematic vignettes about baseball, women, Kirby's family, his training regimen. It feels stuffed with too much information and not enough analysis.

The second act opens with an illustration of this play's promise. Ansa Akyea's Kirby flirts through his first encounter with his eventual wife, Tonya, played coolly by Shá Cage. As Kirby fumbles this chance, Bellamy's coach stands off to the side, using the lingo of baseball to give his buddy reference points for love. We begin to see an athlete who assumes his fame and success is carte blanche off the field. The tension in Puckett's life was his inability to translate his baseball prowess into a new way of living.

The History Theatre's staging by director Steve Moulds does little to juice the script. Akyea is great as Puckett, his step bouncing and his voice mimicking that motormouth cadence. But Jones and Moulds never find a defining moment, that tour de force you want from a title character. Cage comes closest, defining the anger of a woman who finds living within her husband's celebrity unbearable. Bellamy is rock steady in a role that works as the Greek chorus. Photos and film are projected on a screen, trying to inject drama at key moments -- the World Series triumphs, the Hall of Fame induction. Reminders of happy times, they seem in dissonance with Jones' investigation of the private Puckett.

Jones offers plenty of opinions, feeling Puckett was done dirty because of his race and suggesting there was more pain in his life than the public ever saw. He could very well be right in every case, but he hasn't knit it together into an organic play.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299

Graydon Royce • groyce@startribune.com