Anti-Social Studies
;)
Deborah Boardman
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We're hardly surprised to find lunatics running the asylum, so it's easy to accept The Faculty Room as just another school satire — at first. Bridget Carpenter's dark comedy, a smartly produced Philadelphia première by Flashpoint Theatre Co., aspires to much more than just the sophomorically nasty revenge fantasy of a bitter graduate.
We learn little about Madison Feury High in the fluorescent nightmare of its faculty lounge (compliments of lighting designer Shon Causer), where every-school-has-one, 40-ish, pony-tailed English teacher Adam (Mark Cairns) and his much younger, but equally jaded, ex-wife drama teacher, Zoe (Janice Rowland), spar in front of new teacher Carver (Keith Conallen), the only other colleague who spends any time in this pukey beige hellhole (appropriately uglified by Christian Pedone).
After we chuckle over their low standards (Zoe wipes up coffee with a student essay, then shrugs, "I'll give her a B"), poor conditions (they nonchalantly toss confiscated firearms down a chute) and Carpenter's too-obvious jokes (catatonically apathetic Bill teaches — ba-boom — ethics), what emerges as Carpenter leapfrogs through the school year (first week, Halloween, Thanksgiving) is something darker and meaner than showing yet again that teachers are real, fucked up and real fucked up.
Adam and Zoe play at choosing a student "girlfriend" and "boyfriend," respectively, horrifying Carver. As the year progresses, Adam's crush leads him to advise a student club obsessed with novels about The Rapture ("Sudden Awakening" is Carpenter's fictionalization of the "Left Behind" series). Meanwhile, Zoe reverts to high school melodrama, obsessing over "still waters run deep" student Alberto. Both, Carver asserts, live in "the Land of Lost Judgment." Cairns and Rowland fling arch repartee expertly, with Rowland revealing unexpected depths, and Conallen shines as the idealist with closeted secrets.
What all this builds to, in Meghann Williams' charged production, is tantalizingly ambiguous: a Columbine-like incident, a miracle, maybe a new beginning? Caring about these characters is difficult (even Gene D'Alessandro's hilarious doubling as silent Bill and loquacious Principal Dennis, met only over the PA system), but Carpenter hints in her finale about with whom we ought to empathize.
The Faculty Room
Through Dec. 1, Second Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St. 215-563-4330, flashpointtheatre.org
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