With “Becky Shaw,” Gina Gionfriddo wedges herself somewhere between Victorian satirist William Makepeace Thackeray, creator of "Vanity Fair" schemer Becky Sharp, and contemporary English scribe Patrick Marber, author of the intensely lethal “Closer” and screenwriter of the deliciously twisted “Notes on a Scandal.”
If the thought of spending an evening with a handful of greedy, manipulative, jealous, vindictive and otherwise disaffected New Englanders is your idea of merriment, you may want to check out the Actor’s Express season opener, written by the Pulitzer Prize finalist and "Law & Order" contributor. But do keep in mind that in this age of scabrous, anything-goes entertainment, the concept of acid, intelligent wit no longer means Coward and Shaw.
Try a heinous blind date, a car robbery and hotel sex followed by regret, abandonment, a suicide attempt — oh, my. Grieving for her father, hating her mother and newly wed to the gentle Andrew (Tony Larkin), Suzanna (Jill Hames) introduces her semi-adopted brother and financial manager Max (Andrew Benator) to the desperately clingy title character (Veronika Duerr) and bad stuff erupts. Throw in Suzanna’s recently widowed, acid-tongued mother (Kathi Welch), who is plagued with multiple sclerosis and a new boyfriend, and you’ve got a nasty, foul-tasting stew.
Directed by Freddie Ashley and featuring the artful set design of Kat Conley, “Becky Shaw” is by turns bludgeoning to the soul and wickedly funny. (Listen out for the Virginia Woolf, Brown University and "bubbla" jokes.) I for one confess to having a love-hate relationship with this story and sort of wonder if a second viewing might help me sort out my feelings of being unnecessarily dumped upon — like Becky.
The actors who seem truest to the bones of their characters are Benator, who cuts a fascinating figure as an almost irredeemable parasite, and Duerr, who plays Becky as a lost, blithering and somewhat endearing comical buffoon in a birthday-cake dress, then allows us to watch as she is slowly torn apart by this school of mean fish. (You might think that Becky is own worst enemy.) The Brown dropout with a history of bad relationships and parents, she is eventually magnetized by Andrew, a man so sensitive that he cries when he watches porn. Naturally, this budding attraction gnaws away at Suzanna, even though she is oscillating between Andrew and her own lingering desire for Max.
Shrill and wound tight, Hames seems a little self-conscious here. Larkin’s Andrew is fine, but you have to believe that both these performances could have been fuller and richer. As the mother, Welch is fascinatingly astringent, like some combination of Katherine Chancellor of “The Young and the Restless” and Claire Zachanassian of Friedrich Durrenmatt’s “The Visit.”
On the design side, Elizabeth Rasmusson delivers dependable, appropriately forgettable contemporary costumes. Conley suggests the theme of duality in the sets: a series of boutique hotel rooms, stenciled with what looks like a turquoise makeover of the Continental Airlines logo, for the sleazy meetings and a formal red lacquer space for other situations.
Depending on what kind of mood you are in, “Becky Shaw” will be a total bummer or a thrill ride. It’s a daring season opener for Actor’s Express. But it ain't for sissies. Just because people act like this doesn't mean we have to like them.
Theater review
“Becky Shaw”
Grade: B
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 5 p.m. Sept. 5 and Sept. 19. 2 p.m. Sept. 12. Through Sept. 25. $25-$30. Actor's Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 West Marietta St., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, actorsexpress.com
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