"I have this basic idea that re-enactments shouldn't just be Revolutionary War or Civil War re-enactments," said Adam Snyder, who wrote, directed and co-starred in the short play. "There are things we could be re-enacting from 10 years ago, or five minutes ago. This is in the spirit of that."
Call it a capacity house, though take that impression with a grain of salt. The performance last Friday night of Snyder's look at how local history impacted the world took place in the main gallery space at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts (KMOCA) before a crowd of around 15 people, some of whom came through the doors a minute late to find the show nearly half over.
Performed in period costumes of crisp suits not unlike those seen on the wildly popular weekly television show Mad Men, The Cold War Comes to Kingston was half a re-enactment and half a reading, with the four-member ensemble reading from their scripts. The show felt unrehearsed, though in a charming way, as though given by quirky relatives as an annual family function.
Snyder played the role of Thomas J. Watson, the Campbell native who went on to become the president of International Business Machines, turning the company into a global force and local all-father during the middle of the 20th century. Snyder, like the rest of the cast, managed to lend the story dignity while adding elements of humor and sophistication. His wild white wig, Snyder confessed, was actually the beard from a Santa Claus costume, perched sideways upon his head.
The City of Kingston, Snyder's script pointed out, was at the forefront of the Cold War as the local IBM plant built SAGE, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment system, a large-scale electronic air-surveillance and weapons-control system that was designed in part for use by the U.S. military to protect the country in the event of a nuclear attack.
The role of Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, alternately nicknamed "Bombs Away" and "Old Iron Pants," was played by Sean Nixon, who after saying "Russians" when he meant to say "Nazis," re-enacted the locally famous photo of the general, who engineered the massively lethal bombing campaign over Japan in World War II, was an early head of the Strategic Air Command and advised President Kennedy to launch an attack on Cuba during the missile crisis, leaning over a SAGE computer in the Kingston IBM facility some time in the mid-'50s.
The cast was rounded out by Michael Asbill and Dorothy Albertine, who played a local IBM-er and an IBM secretary respectively.
The play opened by comparing the significance of IBM's relationship with Kingston to that of the Dutch colonial period, the 1777 burning of the city by British troops, and the coming of the D&H Canal in the 19th century. Snyder elaborated later.
"We do feel it will prove as historic someday," he said. "People just had to get over the shock of IBM leaving, and then pretend like it's 100 years past and look back on it. You realize, the vibrancy period of the canal might have been roughly the same as the vibrancy period of IBM. It's an alive and living memory."
The play, which takes place in the Military Products Division of IBM during the mid-'50s, is considered part of what the participants hope will be something more. "We actually see this as the beginning of something we might tentatively call the 'IBM Project,' to do some oral histories with some people," Snyder said. "It makes sense to get people talking about it in positive terms, because then in years to come the information will be more robust."
In its present, it's part of KMOCA's Kingston history exhibit, which by press time will have moved to City Hall, where it will be displayed through the remainder of the year. The exhibit includes contemporary photographs of Kingston and what Asbill called "historic ephemera," as well as pieces specific to the city's now-defunct IBM facility, which now houses several much smaller entities under the name TechCity.
"We have some photographs of other things that happened in the IBM facility, including electric typewriter manufacture," Asbill said. "In some ways, this show is a collection of collections."
The "IBM Project" is still in its infancy, but Snyder said he would like to expand the play to cover a bit more ground and promised future re-enactments are already in the works. Asbill added that a blog on the subject is also being discussed.
What the short play didn't cover was one area of IBM's history that saw the company enter into a relationship with the Third Reich by selling punch card machines to Nazi Germany through IBM subsidiary Dehomag. Watson was given the Eagle with Star medal from Germany, which he reportedly returned after World War II broke out.
"I understand that they were equal opportunity technology people," Snyder said. "But it didn't really fit in with a three-minute play."
What did work for the play was the IBM connection to the area, which was outlined in the final line of the play, begun by Watson, but finished by the entire cast: "What's good for IBM is good for Kingston. And what's good for Kingston is good for the United States."
Whether area residents are ready to celebrate the history of a company whose departure more than a decade ago is still felt by many of its people remains to be seen. Snyder hopes his play will help make that happen.
"It still has a historical place in Kingston," he said.
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