PLENTY OF DANGEROUSLY WRY HUMOR IN THIS 'ROMANCE'.Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic HOW IT must not suck to be David Mamet. You've written plays, won awards (deservedly), graduated to films and pioneered a style of dialogue that carries your very name (``Mamet-speak''). A New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of theater company that you founded - the Atlantic Theatre Company - is standing by to produce pretty much any new thing you happen to write, no matter how substantial. Or insubstantial, which brings me to the Mark Taper Forum's production of ``Romance,'' a comedy/farce by a playwright who typically writes neither. Oh, Mamet's plays are plenty funny in a dangerous, fringes-of-polite-society kind of way, but consciously trolling for humor? David Mamet? Something doesn't compute here. Within the cast of the Taper's ``Romance'' - a co-production with the Atlantic - there are seven actors, six of whom have extensive experience in Mamet plays. And, yes, there's something occasionally satisfying in watching these actors bat the Mamet-speak around like a motorized mo·tor·ize tr.v. mo·tor·ized, mo·tor·iz·ing, mo·tor·iz·es 1. To equip with a motor. 2. To supply with motor-driven vehicles. 3. To provide with automobiles. Ping-Pong ball. Substantial parts of ``Romance'' take place within a courtroom where defendant, prosecutor, defense attorney and bailiff bailiff Officer of some U.S. courts whose duties include keeping order in the courtroom and guarding prisoners or jurors in deliberation. In medieval Europe, it was a title of some dignity and power, denoting a manorial superintendent or royal agent who collected fines and each regularly get in a volley of dialogue. You almost expect a light to go on above a speaker's head (bing!) when it's his turn to speak and turn off when the dialogue volleys elsewhere. Playing the anything-but-silent judge is Larry Bryggman in a performance so cerebrally zany that you are tempted to check the program again to verify that the playwright is David Mamet and not Joe Orton. Bryggman and company are masters at this game, but what game have they mastered here? Noodling? Shock for shock's sake? The sling-shot projectiles Mamet is lobbing are aimed - with four-letter expletives every bit intact - at intellectuals, politicos, chiropractors, Jews and homosexuals. As this play operates in the interests of humor, ``Romance's'' rants are not nearly as vicious as they might be. Nor as interesting. It's as though Mamet, who has faced critical charges of misogyny misogyny /mi·sog·y·ny/ (mi-soj´i-ne) hatred of women. mi·sog·y·ny n. Hatred of women. mi·sog in the past, has responded with a middle finger disguised as a two-act play. ``Oh, you don't like it? Here's what I think of your (at)$*%# morality.'' The characters are mostly unnamed. The defendant (played by Steven Goldstein) is a chiropractor who was caught in a compromising position in a hotel room in Hawaii. A gay prosecutor (Jim Frangione) is trying to execute justice and stave off the breakup of his marriage with boy toy Bernard (Noah Bean). After trading a barrage of racial epithets with his client, the defense attorney (Ed Begley Jr.) decides there's something worthwhile in the defendant's plan to bring peace to the Middle East via strategic spinal cord spinal cord, the part of the nervous system occupying the hollow interior (vertebral canal) of the series of vertebrae that form the spinal column, technically known as the vertebral column. realignments at the nearby United Nations peace talks. The judge mostly wants his pills. Over and over again. Upon learning of the prosecutor's sexual orientation sexual orientation n. The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. , he asks, ``What is it you guys actually do?'' There is a scene between Bean and Frangione of such cliched cli·chéd also cliched adj. Having become stale or commonplace through overuse; hackneyed: "In the States, it might seem a little clichéd; in Paris, it seems fresh and original" fractured gay domesticity (director Neil Pepe going heavily for the gusto) that I'm astounded a·stound tr.v. a·stound·ed, a·stound·ing, a·stounds To astonish and bewilder. See Synonyms at surprise. [From Middle English astoned, past participle of astonen, Mamet stooped to writing it. Much of what takes place outside the courtroom, in fact, could probably have been excised to bring ``Romance's'' already-thin 90 minutes into one-act range. Is it funny? Absurd? God help us, yes, it quite frequently is. Mamet noodles more expertly than playwrights of considerably less ability. All the same, you've got to wish Center Theatre Group artistic director Michael Ritchie had somehow engineered the transfer of the recent Broadway revival of ``Glengarry Glen Ross'' to the Taper instead. Mamet lite may occasionally be tasty, but it's no meal. Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com ROMANCE - Two stars Where: Mark Taper Forum The Mark Taper Forum is a small thrust stage with 745 seats at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Beckett and Associates. It has presented innovative plays since 1967. The world premiere of Angels In America was produced here. , 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Nov. 13. Tickets: $42 to $55. Call (213) 628-2772. In a nutshell: Funny, cheerfully - even gleefully glee·ful adj. Full of jubilant delight; joyful. glee  ful·ly adv.glee - offensive, and lighter than air Some gases are buoyant in air because they have a density that is less than the density of air (about 1.2 kg/m3, 1.2 g/L). Lighter than air gases are used to fill craft called aerostats which include free balloons, moored balloons, and airship to make the whole aircraft, on . CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Ed Begley Jr., left, Larry Bryggman, rear, and Jim Frangione star in David Mamet's ``Romance,'' at the Mark Taper Forum. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion