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Peer Reviews dark play or stories for boys Reviewed by David DeSpain Entire contents are copyright © 2007, David DeSpain. All rights reserved.
The Humana New American Play Festival is the preeminent festival of its kind in the country. Nowhere else can you see so many cutting edge, thought provoking, in-your-face productions in one place as you can there. I suspect that many of the pieces in the festival are chosen as much for their message as for their theatrical quality. The play dark play or stories for boys by Carlos Murillo does little to allay this suspicion. Within the play itself is the message that theater must be "dark and dangerous." Nowhere does it say, however, that it must be entertaining, and there was certainly very little sign of entertainment in this play. And unfortunately, its desperate attempts at being thought provoking often fall wide of the mark. How wide? I have no idea. I quit trying to follow them after a while. The talents of the cast, which are considerable, simply could not overcome the material contained in the script. Mathew Stadelmann in the lead role of Nick -- we see Nick both as a college student and in flashbacks as a fourteen year old -- is very engaging and convincing in the role, but it is difficult to sustain any consistent interest in the character. Will Rogers was also very engaging as Adam, and in truth I found this character to be the one that I could most easily care about and follow. He was not bogged down with many of the "plot devices" that the others were. Playing multiple characters, Lou Sumrall managed to steal the most laughs from the audience. His female impersonations were the ones most enjoyed. Jennifer Mendenhall was always sharp, but it is a shame that her Olivia Stabler appeared so late in the production. She was very funny as the Detective with the Special Victims Unit, but by the time she made her entrance, fatigue had already set in and taken root. Though she was always on stage, and though she played dual roles, Liz Morton actually had the most confining, least developed character of all. Ms. Morton did what she could with her.
Now, to this point, it may sound as though the entire play from start to finish was a grand waste of time. It wasn't, but the story could have been told much better in a twenty-minute installment on NPR's This American Life than in a nearly two-hour play. The story itself, which revolves around a college student and his reminiscing about the time that he was fourteen and went online in search of 'dangerous play,' has wonderful potential. Unfortunately, it never comes to fruition here. The demons that Nick fights, the recklessness with which he intrudes into other people's lives, the frightening potential of Internet connections, all of these can be compelling theater fare. Maybe one day they will be. The biggest problem this play faces is that it tries to be cutting edge at the expense of the story. And those elements that are utilized to be cutting edge -- naked actors beneath the covers as the audience enters the theater, semi nudity, assaulting music, a few actors playing many roles, the foulest of language, implied homosexual and teen sex, the use of cameras and television screens in the performance, the repetition of certain phrases or entire portions of dialogue throughout the play -- the truth is, we've seen them all before. Hence, when dark play fails as cutting edge, and it has no compelling entertainment value to fall back on, it becomes simply a two-hour chunk of time that has been taken from the audience. Now, in fairness, there were some in the audience who immediately, upon the lights coming up, proceeded to give a standing ovation. My guess is that it was for the actors, however, and not the play. And I will say this: seeing this play has made me curious to see other plays in the series, if only to see if they fall into the same traps that this one did.
dark play or stories for boys
Posted Mar. 5, 2007 |
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