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Also this issue: Bad for the Business artquicks Wozzeck ComedySportz Cares "Martians and Motorcycles" "Privacy Writes: Public Lives, Personal Letters" Fourth Of U LIE Rebel Party PII Gallery | Stedman Gallery | And Then Thereās · |
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July 3- 9, 2003
theater
For the tired theater critic at the end of the season, there’s nothing more enlivening than an unexpected little treasure of a show. When that show is also the debut of a promising new company -- even better.
So there's gladness in my heart as I welcome Belligerent Muse, an energetic group that (collaborating with Theatre V) makes a stunningly confident, virtuosic debut in a fascinating (and nearly forgotten) landmark of American drama.
Interview, by Jean-Claude van Itallie, is the first of three one-act plays that were performed together in 1966 under the collective title of America Hurrah. Early productions were a who's who of the avant-garde: Initiated by the Open Theatre, directed by Joseph Chaiken and Tom O'Horgan, Interview was seen at Café LaMama and the Sheridan Square Playhouse, and ultimately made its way on an acclaimed European tour.
Yet the America Hurrah plays haven't had the afterlife one might have expected. Perhaps some think they are relics from an earlier time, or that the style has outlived its expiration date.
Happily, this production proves that Interview retains its punch. Eight actors (four are described as "Interviewers," the other four as "Applicants") launch a complex series of conversations. What begins as a sequence of job interviews (rife with barely suppressed hostility and class-consciousness) quickly moves into other arenas of stressful contemporary life. A woman, desperate to find a particular street in chaotic Manhattan, gets different advice from every indifferent passerby. A tired and ill telephone operator melts down at a busy switchboard. Most memorably, a group of slimy politicians speechify in clichés as a square-dance caller looks on.
It's fair to say the issues of Interview (notably the dehumanization of America) are very much of their time. But in taking to heart van Itallie's advice that companies approach the material on their own, Belligerent Muse has created a splendidly physical production that makes the piece seem newly minted. To single out one marvelous moment among many: There's that telephone sequence, flawlessly and scarily executed with the slightest of means. I won't single out any one performer, because the entire ensemble -- Sondra Blanchard, Benjamin Cromie, Rory Diller, Gail Grigg, Amanda Haney, Maria Möller, Jerry Perna, Seth Reichgott -- work so beautifully together, under the fine direction of Dee King.
Let's celebrate and support Belligerent Muse, which promises to follow up this production in October with a "new" piece by the Marquis de Sade. I'll be first in line!
Interview: A Fugue for Eight Actors
Through July 6, Belligerent Muse and Theatre V, Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5, 825 Walnut St., 215-925-9023.
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