Well, here we are, poised to squirm with laughter as Actor’s Express closes its season with a bloody exclamation point: Allison Moore’s “Slasher,” freshly ripped from the Humana Festival of New American Plays and featuring the madcap Shelly McCook as a “disabled” Texas chainsaw of a mama who pops pills and depends on an electric scooter.
A send-up of the low-budget film genre in which attractive young women are cut to ribbons by demonic stalkers who live for the thrill of the kill, “Slasher” juices up its premise by placing its rage in the person of single mom Frances McKinney (McCook), who is incensed by the sexual objectification of women. Frances’ chronic fatigue may be psychosomatic. But when her fetching young daughter Sheena (Annie York) quits her job at the fictional equivalent of Hooters and signs up to be the “last girl” standing in a cheapo slasher flick, Frances’ sleaze-policing agenda becomes as clear as a bell.
It’s indicative of the B-movie camp quotient that our first glimpse of Frances finds her sprawled on the floor, waiting for her daughters to rescue her from a scooter spill. Frances will eventually wiggle her way into a path of destruction aimed at saving Sheena from lech-y filmmaker Marc Hunter (John Benzinger), who she hates for reasons the playwright has clumsily stitched together as a motive.
But Moore and her convulsing plot can’t sustain the energy of the set-up and director Freddie Ashley’s staging goes off track in a last-minute orgy of sloppy choreography that keeps us hanging on for all the wrong reasons. Sure, the operation is purposefully outrageous and fake-looking. But, unlike, say, the expert gore-ticians at Dad’s Garage, this ensemble isn’t particularly nimble when it comes to the special effects. Ashley also has a habit of pinning the action into a front corner of the stage so that audience members have to crane to see what’s happening.
Aside from Sarah Wallis (who gives a lovely performance as Frances’ younger daughter, Hildy), the acting is more gratuitously over the top than smartly crafted. McCook and Benzinger have their moments but mostly build their performances on bellowing and scenery-chomping. Expressive down to the way she points her pumps, Elizabeth Neidl is funny in a variety of roles, including that of a door-to-door anti-abortion proselytizer who gets sucked into Frances’ scheme. As Jody, the fawning film student who’ll anything to get work, David Sterritt seems a bit out of his depth — he also doubles as flight captain — and York is solid but not particularly memorable.
Just when we were ready to scream and wallow in silliness, “Slasher” comes along and slices up the fun. Gushing with one-liners and a feminist rant that’s too gonzo to be taken seriously, it’s a disappointment to watch this uneven 90-minute blood-bath spoof gasp for life without ever landing its hook.
Theater review
“Slasher”
Grade: C +
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. 5 p.m. Sundays (2 p.m. on June 6). Through June 19. $25-$30. Actor's Express, 887 West Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, actors-express.com
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