Rounding Third @ Theatre Frisco
—Sam Lisman
Not even the greatest acting can save a lousy play, but really good acting can certainly improve a decent (but not overly compelling) script. Such is the case with Theatre Frisco’s Rounding Third by Richard Dresser.
This two-person play, ably directed by Broadway veteran Michael Serrecchia, is ostensibly about coaching Little League baseball, but just as Little League isn’t really just about baseball, neither is this play entirely about it either.
Don (Scott Nixon, playing a very different role from his usual, Detective Harry Hunsacker in Pegasus Theatre’s black-and-white mysteries) is serious about baseball and serious about winning. He’s coached for years; his son is the best player on the team. He still remembers his batting average (well over .400) from his final year of Little League—and his team would have been champions, had a teammate not been picked off at third while Don was on deck to bat.
It’s not that Don the coach doesn’t want the kids on his current team to have fun; he just believes from experience that it’s impossible to have fun while losing.
Michael (Chad Cline, who normally plays the acerbic Detective Foster to Nixon’s Hunsacker) knows almost nothing about baseball and isn’t all that concerned with winning. He’s never coached before; his son is on Don’s do-not-draft list; and his sports experience closest to Little League was curling (having spent part of his childhood in Canada, obviously). Michael is happy to point out to the boys that while those curling games (matches?) seemed earth-shatteringly important at the time, today he can’t remember if his team won or lost. Winning is nice, but Michael’s philosophy is that as long as everyone’s doing their best, that’s all that can be expected.
These two are opposites in more than just sports, though: Michael works in an office; Don paints houses. Don has a chip on his shoulder about these class differences, thinking Michael looks down on him and thinks he’s not as smart because he didn’t go to college. When Michael breaks Don’s windshield during flyball practice, Don won’t accept money for the repairs, thinking Michael is trying to show him up. (I was just impressed Michael was able to hit the ball that far.) At the start of the play, they also have very different family lives, though these converge (sort of) as the play progresses.
Rounding Third follows them through the season, from the pre-draft planning meeting through the playoffs. (That’s not a spoiler: every team makes the playoffs.) I think what we’re supposed to see is how they “rub off” on each other, changing to become more alike. But truthfully, Don’s much more powerful personality (except at certain specific times) seems to transform Michael more than Michael changes Don.
Nixon plays Don as a man who wouldn’t have been out-of-place on The Sopranos, not as a mobster or as specifically Italian-American, but as a tough, no-nonsense guy from the neighborhood who recognizes his best days probably ended not long after high school. He’s gruff, direct, a bully—and set in his ways. He’s completely blindsided when his wife and son make decisions he would never have dreamed possible (one comic, one not).
If Cline’s performance is more nuanced, it’s because Michael is more nuanced than Don. The last few years have not been kind to Michael; he’s doing everything he can to keep his head above water and provide stability for his son. He’s clearly torn between trying to hold up his end of the coaching while being available 24/7 to his boss, who calls him constantly.
The set (by Rodney Dobbs) is deceptively simple: a Little League dugout area with a scoreboard in the background. The backdrop very cleverly conceals the back of Don’s van, where the coaches seek shelter from the rain in an early scene. Josh Hensley’s lighting is effective, especially the spotlighting when time stops long enough for Michael to offer a convincing prayer. Elisa Knox’s props are dead-on, from the equipment in the bag to Michael’s cell phones. Michael Robinson of the Dallas Costume Shoppe dresses them exactly as you would expect the two men to be dressed.
The play also humorously addresses a problem I’ve personally encountered many times: the ambiguity of the phrase “my company.” Does it mean, the company I work for, or does it mean the company I own? As Michael and Don experience, it’s easily misunderstood.
Rounding Third is a moderately funny play, but what makes this Theatre Frisco production worth seeing are the performances. Nixon and Cline are both very good, but even better than their individual acting is the chemistry between them. That’s what makes this one, while not a home run, at least a solid RBI double.
WHEN: May 12-28, 2023
WHERE: Frisco Discovery Center, 8004 N. Dallas Parkway
WEB: theatrefrisco.com
