Reviewed 11/12/04
Only Nearly Naked Theatre would make the perverse choice of asking talented director April Smith to helm their production of David Rabe’s fiercely misogynistic paean to cocaine- and alcohol-fueled self- and community-destruction, Hurlyburly. The play was originally written and set in the go-go 80s, but Smith has moved the time up to the present in a way that highlights how male domination and utter disregard for your friends and neighbors are just as relevant today as they were when the last conservative regime was in charge. The styles in Meghan Gilmore’s simultaneously tasteful and tasteless costumes may be contemporary and a state-of-the-art plasma TV may be shouting recent news to the side of Alicia Marie Turvin’s posh and French-tickling-phallus-filled set, but the battering of women is timeless. Clocking in on opening night at just less than three hours, this isn’t a play you enjoy more than you survive. Rabe’s wordplay is masterful and masturbatory all at once, but watching a skilled craftsman diddle is a perverse pleasure that many can enjoy!
Though the self-deluded, self-destructive ways of Eddie and
his buddies seems to be totally out of control, every man in the audience
would be lying if they don’t admit that somewhere in the deep lurid
realm of their Id lurks a shadow that resembles at least one of the characters
that populate this dismal and regrettably rarely produced play. Men will
leave the theatre wanting to bathe in holy water, while women will want to
hold those men’s heads under it until the struggle abates.
Eddie (Christian Miller) and Mickey (Scott
Dillon) are script
developers in the cutthroat biz of show. Mickey is unfazed by everything,
no longer sure where the bullshit begins and ends. Eddie, however, is in
the throws of a monumental depression that rings of regret and drug-induced
paranoia. He is in such disconnect, his inability to touch reality has driven
him off the edge. They hang with their brutish ex-con actor friend Phil (Steven
J. Scally), a mass of threatening actions and reactions desperately trying
to find control of his boorish ways through his limited intellect. Their
buddy Artie (San
dy
Elias) is an annoying pest kept around for comic relief.
Into this quartet are thrown three very different women. Donna (Rory
Vandermark)
is a waif that Artie brings over to be a sex toy. She doesn’t mind.
She just needs a place to crash for a few weeks. Darlene (Kerry McCue) is
a professional woman who is romantically linked with both Eddie and Mickey,
while Bonnie (Terri Lee Soviero) is a stripper brought over as a present
for the divorcing Phil. No one is redeemable in this nasty world, but at
least the women gain respect by being beaten down so brutally.
Miller and Dillon are excellent. Miller is scarily believable as an Eddie tearing through lines of cocaine and endless jabbering in search of a coherent thought. He and Smith capture the various paces set by the stimulants and depressants that his character imbibes throughout. They understand that there’s nothing loveable or worthy of spite at work here, just a lost soul on a bender. Dillon is a different kind of laid back. He is sharp at some points, hands-off at others, but he and Smith have decided on a quiet intensity in a role that is sometimes played in a more chilly way. It’s an excellent choice and a great balance to Miller. Scally has the bulk and intensity of Phil, but he simply does not come across threatening enough. It’s hard to believe that his character has been in the pen; he’s simply too soft around the edges to achieve the barbarism of Phil. I haven’t seen Elias in contemporary garb before, and he’s excellent as the schlemiel Artie. He is able to capture the great mix of haphazard whining and other contemptuous characteristics of this self-centered and unfeeling bastard.
Vandermark’s Donna is a disappointment. She never seems to be within her character. Her lines are presented rather than casually tossed, and she comes off as playing where the others are being. McCue’s Darlene, however, is another tour de force offering. She is quite human and as her character expands, she offers a compellingly lost girl trapped in a man’s world. Soviero is very good as the party girl. When she arrives, she is a blur of possibilities, but as the boys begin the party games, she handles well the character’s understandable disgust and self-deluding justifications.
Turvin’s set is a great creation that offers a multitude of playing levels and comments on the house’s inhabitants. Blue Martin’s lighting is unobtrusive, monotone, and a bit underutilized. Miller’s sound design utilizes good music choices run well.
Rabe is not everyone’s cup of bile. His world is as far from warm and fuzzy as Edward Gorey’s. It is, however, a compelling script full of raw truth and Smith’s production captures it in spades. Empathy never left such a bitter taste.
To purchase a copy of the playscript from Amazon.com, click the below graphic.
