Anna, her gay roommate Larry, and her lover Burton, mourn the loss of their friend Robbie. They become even more disturbed when Robbie's brother Pale appears. "I'm fucking myself into little pieces," he complains, masterfully proceeding to fuck up all their lives.
This intense, John Malkovich-created character - one of Wilson's best - was played by Tim Benedick, an attractive actor with a Brad Pittish face. The actor's character dominated the stage, "biting the lips off lies," punching the air with a wonderfully drole demeanor and a clever bag of tricks with hands and feet.
Jim Maggard played Larry, a voyeuristic scamp, with low-keyed panache; while the handsome George Raboni, a real-life cop for 17 years, parceled out both Burton's tenderness and violence with compelling results. His major flaw was a strangely regional accent and some pronunciation problems (which he shared with others in the company). Cast: please note how to say "Croesus," "sidles," and "usurp"!
Judith Taranto, despite her enviable figure and sex appeal, strained, successfully, through labyrinths of technique, to reach her character's inner life. But the effort, taking just split seconds too long, often sucked her into inaudible viscosity. Her partner Pale's emotions, on the other hand, always danced on Benedick's fingertips.
Thus the best acting took place between the men. And the loveliest scene, propelled by the innate, unspoken conflict between gay desire and heterosexual fear, inspired powerful, erotic, and poignant work out of Maggard and Raboni.
The program announced two directorial debuts. Thus casting and pacing problems were to be expected. But lots of imaginative physical life moved the actors pleasingly.
It was easy to see one good reason to choose this play for a theatre where the audience sits in an industrial loft space exactly like the one the characters inhabit. John Trapani added a convincing kitchen sink; but some doors still needed work at the first preview. Real, open windows let through too much across-the-street activity for audience concentration.
Lighting by Dierdre Howarth and Paul Jones battled for subtlety and lost the war to limited equipment. But the music was well chosen, although the primitive sound system called attention to inadequacies.
This performance of the play didn't quite catch fire. But its gentle humor kept a smile on the face; and the cast's superior and thoughtful talent captured the heart of the piece better than a simple reading of the script could ever do.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger