Scientists, cancer, ethics and humor
merge in Kitchen Theatre’s Secret Order

Ah, to find a cure for cancer. From a distance it sounds like one of those impossible dreams that beauty pageant contestants burble about, like world peace and an end to racism. In reality, of course, billions have been poured into cancer research in recent decades, and not all in the name of benevolence. When the cure comes, as hoped for, the payoff for the patent will be bigger than the national debt. Not to mention the Nobel Prize. All these elements—money, ambition, vanity, careerism, risk and great promise—are the makings of compelling drama, and they come together in a new play. What David Mamet did for real estate in Glengarry Glen Ross, Bob Clyman (minus the profanity) has done for cancer research in Secret Order, now at Ithaca’s Kitchen Theatre Company.

Action begins when a stumbling, naive researcher from Illinois, William Shumway (Tony Roach), finds himself with a microphone in his hands at a learned meeting. A scheduled lecturer of Flemish poetry did not show up, and so Shumway gets his chance. Without using any technical jargon, he explains that he has indeed hit upon the cure for cancer. Inarticulateness and obscurity did not hold him back. He quickly attracts the attention of a hard-driving administrator, Robert Brock (Greg Bostwick), of a giant East Coast research center named Hill-Matthieson Institute, which not coincidentally has the same number of syllables as Sloan-Kettering. To Brock, Shumway is a “beachfront property,” who should be given everything he wants.

Once ensconced, Shumway gets to work rapidly and produces exciting results. Specifics must be kept secret, a partial explanation of the title. In some brilliantly clear, color-coded projections, Shumway explains how the cancerous growths appear and how they are beaten back. Scenic artist Apollo Weaver deserves special applause for these concoctions, which are expanded by projectionist Bill Clarke. Scenic designer Kent Goetz has turned the cancer slides into the floor decoration and the wall behind the action so that we never forget what the demanding tedium of laboratory research can be, no matter what fun and fireworks are taking place in front of us.

While details may be secret, the general news is bound to get out and reaches to the shores of the Charles River where ambitious 21-year-old Harvard undergraduate Alice Curiton (Kelly Galvin) catches the fever. She rushes to Hill-Matthieson and storms into Brock’s office, pleading to be made Shumway’s assistant. It will cost H-M nothing as she is already on a grant she can take with her. Ms. Curiton (characters are conventionally known by their family names) talks a mile a minute, and so we don’t immediately notice that she has lied to get into Brock’s office, pretending to have an appointment. This ruse does not trouble Brock, a consummate and cheerful liar himself, who says she talks like “a thousand poodles barking all at once.” For experienced playgoers, however, all this deceit is an inescapable portent.

Curiton’s youth adds another level of tension about just when in life anyone, especially a scientist, can make that lightning strike. She sneers at old-timers over 50, which we find is Brock’s age. Worse, Brock has twice come close to being Nobel-worthy, but that was years back. His consolation now is power, as he explains: “What happens to a scientist if he doesn’t have an original thought? He becomes department chair.”

This leads to the fourth character in the drama, Saul Roth (Roy Clary), the chief of surgery, who—constantly reminding us he is 67—sounds like a figure in a Philip Roth novel. Learning that Shumway was originally from Minnesota, Roth asks if the young man knows the Epsteins, who live in Wisconsin, probably the nearest Jews. His anecdotes always begin with quotations from his uncle Milt. 

As Brock’s ambitions extend to the whole of the institute, and thus his management, he wants to push Roth out of the way and humiliates him with reduced assignments and inferior work space. Playwright Clyman gives us every reason to expect more from Roth because he is the master of witty paradoxes: “Nobody goes there to say anything. We just talk.” Of course he means that nobody makes an important announcement there, but the wordplay is enough to let us know Roth can draw on unseen reserves of power.

Missing thus far are Secret Order’s two greatest assets, characterization and language. Each one of Clyman’s characters is richer and more unpredictable than this summary has implied. The youthful Shumway is far more complex than that familiar figure in American literature, the honest, heroic rube, like Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith. 

When Curiton offers a discreet sexual encounter, he refuses, not because he finds her undesirable but because he does not want to take advantage of a student—and so asks for a rain check. He is also an unashamed believer in a world of secularists, and is filled with wonder at the unexplained mysteries of nature, like the contrasting ways that coffee and cream will swirl in two different cups. Brock, Roth and Curiton do not remain what they seem at introduction but follow through on subtle hints Clyman has given us about them.

Importantly, also, Secret Order is often knock-down hilarious. This puts it way ahead of comparable-sounding dramas about the intellectual life and ethical choices, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen and David Auburn’s Proof. Clyman writes comic dialogue instead of gags, and so the spark does not translate well from the stage to the page. But consider Roth’s swoon, “A fresh warm loaf of bread is the closest we’ll get to seeing the face of God.” 

Instead, Clyman’s wit serves to define relationships. Many of the best go to Brock, the character the author clearly dislikes the most, just as Tony Kushner gave the best lines to Roy Cohn in Angels in America. The hyper-aggressive Curiton boasts that she’s from Harvard. An unmoved Brock answers, “Yes {remembering that he’s heard of it}, near Boston.”

Director Rachel Lampert exacts perfect timing from a professional cast dominated by newcomers. Tony Roach’s Shumway is the most necessary performance, shy and awkward but resolved. As a character who has difficulty getting across what he feels, Roach always shows that Shumway knows and feels more than he says. Kelly Galvin’s Curiton and Roy Clary’s Roth are also rich in subtext, their portrayals sending us even better signals of coming turns than the hints buried in the text. Company regular Greg Bostwick can do no wrong, even when he delivers a smiling incarnation of Satan—but a Satan who carries his own private wounds.

Bob Clyman’s Secret Order suffers only from a clunky, misleading title. In all other respects it’s a feast, better than a warm loaf of bread.

This production runs through Sept. 20. See Times Table for information.