Spurs jangle, pistols twirl, saloon doors swing, and blood flows in Keith Glover's new play, "Dark Paradise". The blood gets licked by thirsty vampires. Transylvania has moved to the West - Paraiso Oscuro, to be specific - and to the Marx Theatre at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The premiere is under the playwright's direction. Or misdirection. Seems the vampire Western took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and got lost on its way to being the exciting spectacle that had been hyped. Various production elements contribute to the disappointment, but underlying it all is a confusing script.
In essence, "Dark Paradise" is a good guys versus bad guys story, with comedy and romance. The good guys are Chiron, the marshal of Paraiso; lawman Wyatt Earp; and dentist-gambler Doc Holliday. The bad guys are led by Colonel Jeddadiah Crate, who's already been dead for more than one hundred years but still stirs up evil in 1878.
Onto this simple conflict, Glover piles enough subplots and assorted characters to fill a Shakespearean play. Ty LaRue, imprisoned for multiple murders, is trying to get half a box that's in the possession of Sura, the girlfriend of his dead brother, William. Chiron wants to earn enough money to move away from Paraiso with Bessatura, a showgirl and saloon keeper. Cole and Packard are out-of-work miners looking for their own claim and a good time.
If the plots were developed in a balanced way, we would know who's story we were watching and which outcome was most important. At first it seems like Chiron's story, since he's narrating. But then, maybe it's Sura's, since her literal journey brings the trouble to Paraiso Oscuro. Of course, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday have the weight of history, and legend, to emphasize their involvement. Later, it seems to be Ty's story, since he's the one who Crate is after. Watching this fragmented narrative unravel is like frequently flipping stations with a remote, catching some developments but leaving gaps.
Many of the actors are given little more than urgent, melodramatic encounters. The delightful exception is Ron Riley and Mike Hartman as the dusty old miners, Cole and Packard, respectively. They present the show's most enjoyable scenes, easily fighting and clowning with each other. Surely these two engage in shenanigans when they're not on stage. Exactly what happens to them in the end, though, wasn't clear to me. In fact, I couldn't list who's dead, alive, or undead at the end without guessing. There was a lot of action, but it offered few clear resolutions.
The show is closer to a screenplay and would be better served on film than on stage. Glover cuts from one location to another and manipulatively underscores key scenes with atmospheric music. Technical problems, especially from a hydraulic lift, caused opening to be postponed one night. (I attended the next week, hoping that the show had time to settle a bit.) Special effects, directed by Jim Steinmeyer, offer a hocus-pocus distraction that only emphasizes the production's disjointed feel.
Act two explodes into the showdown between good and evil. Glover connects snippets of action with a muddied voiceover, underscored by music and punctuated by flashes of light and technical tricks. The result is more often funny than frightening, which would be okay if the showdown clearly contributed to the various plots. The climax comes when the two halves of the mysterious box are reunited. We don't know enough about the box to give it as much significance as Glover has. What's the box's history? How did LaRue and Crate get their halves? Why do they possess magical powers?
Maybe some of the answers are in the script. I admit that I didn't catch every word or phrase. Although they wore mics, the actors were difficult to understand. Dialects (appropriately southern, Mexican, and British) and rapid delivery, often over music, blurred the complicated plot further. The folks sitting next to me were probably not the only ones to leave at intermission because they couldn't figure out what was happening.
"Dark Paradise" is the winner of the Playhouse's annual Lois and Richard Rosenthal New Play Prize. A more appropriate award for this work would be a developmental grant, allowing the playwright to hone his creative script in a workshop setting, rather than cloud the show with special effects and endanger the Playhouse's financial and staff resources in the process. Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern took a chance with Glover's play, based on positive experiences with his "In Walks Ed" and "Thunder Knocking on the Door". By no means should he retreat to offering only proven crowd-pleasers. But sometimes an artistic director has to play both good guy and bad guy, being passionate about the vision and providing a reality check.
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