Theater Review - Shiloh Rules: The Blue and the Gray

Comedy wonders, why can’t we all just fight along?

Civil War re-enactors take enemy sides in the most divisive conflict in U.S. history, but Doris Baizley’s play Shiloh Rules suggests that they’re birds of a feather, no matter the color of their uniforms. In Theatrical Outfit’s amusing production of an inconsistent script, the modern-day Yankees and Rebels both come across as obsessive students of history.

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Baizley views Shiloh Rules from the intriguing perspective of female re-enactors, along with an African-American park ranger (Shontelle Thrash) trying to keep the “145th Battle of Shiloh” from getting out of hand. Shiloh Rules crafts some friction where you wouldn’t expect, such as the rivalry between two scarily committed re-enactors, Union battlefield nurse Clara (Kathleen Wattis) and Confederate refugee Cecilia (Judy Leavell). Cecilia, in fact, has never been seen out of character, and resembles the kind of department-store Santa Claus who never admits to being anything other than St. Nick. Or could Cecilia somehow be exactly who she claims to be?

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Shiloh Rules’ early scenes find plenty of humor as each woman has a younger protégé who has difficulty keeping her head in 1862. “Where are the smelling salts?” “I left them back in the Subaru.” The premise also permits plenty of lively wrangling over whether you can separate the conduct of the Civil War from the institution of slavery, the possibility that the conversion of the South into strip malls qualifies as another “War of Northern Aggression” and a window to changing roles for women in U.S. history.

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But when the actual battle breaks out at the end of Act 1, Shiloh Rules attempts, with only spotty success, to switch between broad comedy and serious themes. One minute, we hear about zany offstage combat for control of the restrooms, and the next we’re sharing a horrific vision of the dead and wounded at the original battle. Wattis conveys the scale of the tragedy in a genuinely moving speech, but Shiloh Rules feels more and more contrived as it goes along, particularly in the ranger’s decision to put on a Union uniform and join the fray.

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The meaning of the title exemplifies the play’s ineffectual qualities. Characters assert that the “rules” differ for the original battle of Shiloh and its subsequent stagings. But Baizley never explains what separates Shiloh from other Civil War battles with massive casualties, and the notion of different rules instead feels like an attempt to lend the present-day action a weight that isn’t really there. Shiloh Rules shows no shortage of ambition as it engages with both the humor and tragedy of the situation, but the play probably needs more substantial reinforcement to win the day.