Reviewed 3/12/04
Nearly Naked Theatre is back at home in the cozy confines of Phoenix Theatre's Little Theatre, and to kick off their homecoming, they've tapped Technical Director David Weiss to mount Wendy MacLeod's thoroughly dark take on another homecoming, The House of Yes . The script is full of differing types of madness, each with the potential for dark humor that claims to have a more surprising ending than anyone paying attention actually receives. As is often the case when a director asks actors to act crazy, some use subtlety to great effect, others use over-the-top to great effect, and still others just can't pull it off. Weiss' production features examples of each. The resulting evening has some highlights, some lowlights, and in the end is a mixed bag of nuts.
Lesly (Kyla Andrews) is a normal, if a
bit dense, young lady who is being brought by her fiancé, Marty Pascal
(Christian
Miller), to Thanksgiving dinner with his family. The fact that this
dinner will occur next door to the Kennedy's Virginia compound during a killer
hurricane lets the audience know that we're heading through the looking glass.
Meeting the Pascals cements this fact: the matron of the household (Patti
Davis Suarez) is a bit distracted and sardonic in her party dress
and multiple strands of pearls, Marty's younger brother Anthony (Boyd
Branch) is sheltered and unmotivated, and his twin sister Jackie-O
(Jennifer Bemis) is a whacked out psychotic who fancies
herself Jackie Kennedy and is a bit too desirous of her brother. Marty is trying
to escape from this clan with the help of the normalizing Lesly, but once you've
gone cracked, can you ever go back? MacLeod brings in elements of Buried
Child and Fool For Love as well as echoes of Pinter and Churchill.
Directing such a dark farce requires a sure hand and an understanding of balance. For each over-the-top performance, there must be a subtle performance to shade the proceedings. Weiss draws a wonderfully impish performance from Suarez, allowing her to chew the scenery like it is the ice in her highball, and this type of over-dramatics is hilarious. Weiss balances Suarez with the careful, crafted performance of Miller, whose subtlety and understatement is a perfect counterbalance and allows for a lot of the mystery of the piece. After these two, though, the performances create an imbalance. It might have been a better choice for Weiss to balance Suarez with an understated Bemis, but he instead allows her to go even larger. Jackie-O is a character that is already so overblown, playing the type only causes blandness of choices. Better would have been for Weiss to bring Bemis into the type of understatement that reflects Miller's performance of her twin. What comes across instead is a cartoon that upsets the already unbelievable elements. This is one case where playing against type is the harder but stronger choice.
Branch's work as the immature Anthony is also a cartoon, but his role begs for this kind of overstatement, and so is generally successful. Andrews, on the other hand, is simply atrocious. Whereas the remainder of the cast makes right or wrong choices, which is at least admirable, this Lesly is a low energy walkthrough. The character has a seminal monologue near the end of the play that sets the tone for the final actions. Andrews mumbles this crucial monologue like someone reading from a sloppy cue card. She never connects with anyone, especially the men, and her presence is the dousing of a wet blanket in the midst of this storm.
Weiss' set is full of straightforward black and white symbolism, and is a well-constructed creation with a lot of good playing spaces badly lit by Michael Sherwin . Yes, this is supposed to take place during a hurricane and blackout, but there's no reason for so many people's faces to be unlit while their bodies are easily seen. The actors seem to find the light only up to their necks during some dramatic moments. Damon Dering's costumes are generally great, especially his creation for Suarez' crazed Mrs. Pascal. Ilana Lydia's sound design contains great tunes and mediocre sound effects awkwardly run.
This is one of those situations where I would love to give my unqualified support for alternative theatre, especially for a piece which may never trot the black and white tiles of a valley theatre, but the balances of the script are mirrored by the balances of positives and negatives in the directing, performance, and design elements. Nearly Naked has said yes one too many times in this case, and the result is only a marginally entertaining black comedy.