Playwright Dan Rosen has adapted his 1995 film as a
provocative, timely, aggravating, efficiently told story of political
frustration and homicidal instincts. In this play, "Arsenic and Old
Lace" meets, well, every play that involves a bunch of 20-somethings
sitting around talking. The dialogue is smart. The production is sparkling and
technologically entertaining. And regardless of personal political orientation,
you will confront your own reactions to political doublespeak and media
overload.
This
piece is truly an ensemble work with nicely balanced performances, yet each
performer is allowed to create a unique character you wouldn't mind getting to
know better. Our core group of five includes two women and three men, all
graduate students or of graduate student age, in a range of disciplines, living
in Iowa City, Iowa. Paulie (Lois Mathilda Atkins) is pursuing a degree in social
work and her partner, artist Mark (Madison Kirks), inspires a series of decisions
and actions by the group after he is threatened by their first accidental
dinner guest. Jude (Elaine Robinson) adds her angry, funny, sardonic humor to the mix. Luke
( Phillip James Brannon) and Peter (Geoff Rice) round out the ensemble. After a violent incident with a
first dinner guest and amidst the oddly intimate effects of a heavy Midwestern
rain storm courtesy of Shawne Benson's sound design (augmented by El trains passing near this
fabulous subterranean performance space on Chicago's West Side), the assembled
crew develops a macabre plan suggestive of Alfred Hitchcock or Agatha Christie.
Luke
pushes the group of friends toward their social action strategy to kill off
invited individuals specifically asked to defend their sometimes heinous social
and political views. The rules the group members lay out for themselves include
killing "only if the person's beliefs and views would lead to or cause
harm to others." The group believes that this rule is sufficient to hold
them in check.
Characters
that pass through this dining room maelstrom of atheistically existential angst
include a proud Bubba gun-toting Republican Zack (Kyle Hatley), a gay baiting, homophobic
priest Father Hutchens (Ed Smaron), and several additional hapless characters played by Ryan
Driscoll, Kevin
Stark, and Blair
Robinson. Local
law enforcement is represented by kind but equally clueless Sheriff Wes Stanley
(James Farruggio).
The final visitor in the flesh is the media commentator we've gotten to know
throughout the show via the masterful video design of Lucas Merino -- this conservative commentator
Norman Arbuthnot is played to a masterful, resonant, chest voiced 'T' by Doug
James.
Characters represented by voice alone and in person articulate extreme opinions
on race, gender roles, AIDS as God's retribution, and on and on. The death
count becomes murky for us in the audience and for the characters themselves,
who debate the total numbers after the intermission. "If he's in the
garden, it counts .. that's the rule." We realize that the rules of
ordinary human interaction have been severely compromised for theses
characters.
Visually,
some grand choices have been made by Lucas Merino's video design, lighting
designers Charles Cooper and Michael Smallwood, and scenic designer Grant Sabin. Three sets of four small flat
screen monitors are suspended in rows along the ceiling facing the three
audience seating sections. Choreographed sequences of images, sometimes
complementary, sometimes identical, sometimes intentionally slightly off,
prepare us thematically for each subsequent scene, bombarding us with the
bombast from a particular, fictional, apparently right wing commentator.
Structurally,
you may initially debate whether the 100 minute play requires the planned
intermission. I resisted the planned intermission before it arrived, and before
I had time to reflect on the experience of the play. In the end, this break is
necessary to take stock of your own reactions to the adventure, debate the
issues and how they are presented in the first half, and to be prepared for the
second stage of the evening.
You
will respond to this production visually, thematically, artistically,
dramatically. This is a play so up to the minute that with a moment's reflection,
you worry for its longevity as a work of art. Are the references too current to
be understood in even a week's or a month's time? Whatever is thought of this
play a year from now, this production is well worth the adventure up West
Division to this fabulous performance space.