THEATRE REVIEW
"FAT
MEN IN SKIRTS" & "SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL" at the Fritz Theatre
KPBS AIRDATE: February 22, 1995
If your
humor tends toward the bleak, bizarre or macabre, book yourself
a front row seat at the Fritz Theatre. Better yet, get a season
ticket. Up now is "Fat Men in Skirts," which will either
delight you or disgust you. Or some of each. But unavoidably,
it will make you laugh.
This is
the southern California debut of the Nicky Silver play, and it's
a harbinger of irresistible grotesqueries to come. The incisive
Silver shines a laser beam on the State of the American Family,
where dysfunctional is just a euphemism. Everyone is obsessive
here; Howard, a cold, uncaring father, obsessed with making
"heartwarming films about lovable extraterrestrials"; Phyllis,
obsessed with her son and with shoes; Bishop, obsessed with
Katherine Hepburn, his hunger, his mother, her shoes and his
anger; and Howard's mistress, the bimbette Pam, who's obsessed
with fame, porn flicks and drugs. Things can only go downhill
from there.
Phyllis
and Bishop are marooned on an island, the only survivors of a
plane crash. To fill their empty stomachs, they cannibalize
their fellow passengers. To fill their empty souls, they
indulge in incest. After five years, Bishop has lost his
compliance, his virginity, his palsied gait and his stutter. He
is perpetually angry, demeaning and dominating his mother by
day, and mounting her by night. When they are returned to
society, he continues to feed on other people, leaving barefoot
bodies strewn all over the city, so he can lay their shoes at
his mother's feet.
Meanwhile, Howard and Pam are living together in
truth-telling/lie-telling pseudo-homey unwedded bliss. Pam is
pregnant, but hiding from Phyllis and Bishop by living in the
closet. Eventually, Bishop knocks off the mistress, his father,
and his mother, winding up in a psychiatric facility where his
mother appears (to urge him to further destruction), his new
shrink resembles his father, and a schizophrenic Pam-look-alike
cheerleader adores him because he is a celebrity murderer.
Eventually, Bishop has an epiphany, an echo from act one, and
the hellacious mother's own fleeting realization: Everyone has
to take responsibility for their own actions. Yet from Silver's
lyrically cynical perspective, every home is a house of
detention, and one family member's controlling, constraining,
self-serving or otherwise unhealthy actions can drag down the
whole household.
Director Bryan Bevell has mined this multileveled, nonlinear
piece to its core. He's especially adept at keeping the rich
vein of humor shimmering on the surface, while not ignoring the
deep, dark, dirty layers underneath. His cast makes the
material sparkle: Diane Addis as the addled, coolly vicious
mother; Tiffni Jellinek as the long-legged, bubble-brained love
interest; Louis Seitchik as the self-obsessed father and Peter
James Smith, chilling as the anguished, amoral Bishop, though he
would be even more powerful if he seethed more and shouted
less. Jeff Benham's set is miraculous, a real, live plane-crash
wreckage, bounded by a red-carpet runway. Just one more
contradictory image of "sweet brutality."
Less
sweet, equally brutal, at least verbally, but no less humorous
is the Fritz's late night offering, "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll."
Louis Seitchik jumps from his dual roles as frigid father and
compassionate psychiatrist in "Fat Men"
to a sextet of characters from the poison-dipped pen of Eric
Bogosian. Seitchik is very talented, though he could use the
objective eye of a director. Nonetheless, he achieves satiric
perfection with several of his portrayals, reprised from last
summer, especially his soulless rock-star, his heartless lawyer,
and his amiable, can-collecting street person.
So
stick around at the Fritz. This probably won't be the first
time you stayed out late for sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll.
I'm Pat
Launer, KPBS radio.