August 4-10, 2005

artpicks

Wanda Lust theater

After the publication of Slaughterhouse Five in 1968, Kurt Vonnegut did what any financially and critically successful author would do: He swore off novels. Why work with the flat ghosts of the written word when you could create flesh-and-blood characters, he said. Which brings us to 1970's Happy Birthday, Wanda June, a sharp, fast-paced play about a husband returning home after abandoning his family seven years prior to travel around the world with his best friend (who happens to be the guy who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki). The irreverent satire had a successful off-Broadway run, but Vonnegut's displeasure with the movie version — so bad he tried to have his name dropped from the credits — had him writing novels again soon enough. Wanda June is rarely mentioned, let alone performed, so this short run at the Shubin — the first production by Ocelot on a Leash theater company, run by hardcore Vonnegut fan Wes Fenza — is a welcome treat if only for its daring. Its sharp wordplay and absurdly meta moments should go over well in the intimate space, and its nearly hopeless outlook on mankind's addiction to war will ring as true as ever. And if it doesn't, let's all swear off plays altogether!

Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Thu.-Sun., Aug. 4-Aug. 7, 8 p.m., $12-$15, Shubin Theater, 407 Bainbridge St., 610-563-1029.

—Patrick Rapa