|
SOMEWHERE FUN Send This Review to a Friend
When a character in Jenny Schwartz’s "Somewhere Fun" talks about having met another character 100,000 years ago, it is obviously meant as hyperbole. But should we feel as if we were watching the play for 100,000 years? Excruciatingly banal and boring, the comedy/drama or whatever is supposed to be, is an exercise in tedium even though its voice is often hyper as a result of the author’s penchant for spewing words meant to sound literary and clever.
The assault begins early when Kate Mulgrew as Rosemary Rappaport shows up at a restaurant. Talking rapidly and loudly, Rosemary is painfully grating, and I longed for her to leave. The author also engages in utter stupidity. Rosemary announces that she is a real estate broker, and yet, in response to Mary Shultz as Cecelia, she wonders what the internet is, as well as having never heard of an iPhone. Really? A contemporary real estate broker not knowing today's tools of the trade? Find me another broker. Find me another character. Find me another play.
Kathleen Chalfant plays another hyper lady, Evelyn Armstrong, who is fatally ill. At least she has some of the play’s funnier lines (relatively speaking). Chalfant, excellent actress that she is, manages to be somewhat entertaining, but she also talks in a frenzy most of the time, so that she grates on the nerves as well.
Brooke Bloom plays a hyper cop, as well as Evelyn’s daughter Beatrice, who, we are told, has no face. A dog chewed it off when she was a child. Gregg Keller, who also is cast as a waiter, portrays Benjamin, Rosemary’s son. Maria Elena Ramirez comes off best as the taciturn Lolita, Evelyn’s calm caregiver.
Perhaps you will be able to make sense out of all of this. The playwright is known for being different and having an individual voice. It would seem that she is trying to talk about the need to get the most out of life while one is here, given the transitory nature of things.
Oh yes, I should mention that, in a nod to theater-of-the-absurd, Rosemary is reduced to a puddle on the sidewalk. That's one way to go, leaving a minimal trace. Can plays be reduced to puddles? At the Vineyard Theatre, 108 East 15th Street. Phone: 212-353-0303. Reviewed June 5, 2013.
|