Will Patton and Amanda Plummer in A Lie of the Mind.

Departing Shots?

by Michael Sommers

T

A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard Promenade Theater

The Boys of Winter by John Pielmeier Biltmore Theater (Closed)

here's nothing wrong with A Lie of the Mind that cutting two hours wouldn't cure. At its present length (nearly four hours, plus two 15-minute intermissions), A Lie of the Mind stands as the omnibus Sam Shepard. If you've never seen any of the plays he's written in his quasi-

realistic style of the last few years, this is the one to see. It's got everything: good brothers and bad, disintegrating families, end-of-thefrontier despair, incest, raw meat thrown on the living room floor, destructive passions, fires, blue moons, and various other bits and pieces of Shepardian what-have-you. Just think: If you get through this, you'll never have to sit through another Shepard play again. And you may not want to, at least until he's got something new to say.

While it's far too long and overbooked with thematic odds and ends, A Lie of the Mind has its virtues, including a powerhouse cast who play the hell out of the show. Amanda Plummer will break your heart as Beth, the young woman who has had her brains literally beaten out by her husband. Ann

Name That Murderer

F

by Terry Helbing

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

by Rubert Holmes Imperial Theater

or some, the real mystery of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, "the solveit-yourself Broadway musical," might

be why anybody bothered producing it. If you're looking for Drood to advance the state. of musical comedy, you're looking in the wrong place. But if you're looking for a modest entertainment, and are willing to pay the immodest Broadway prices, then Drood is for you.

Early on, I was reminded of (of all things) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. As that play's first act wore on, I kept thinking, "Oh, sing the song and get it over with!" Similarly, with Drood, as the overlong first act (even a line of dialogue feels the need to remind us that "the second act is considerably shorter than the first," in case we were worried) introduces us to each of the characters from Dickens's unfinished novel and tries to provide each with a motive for bumping off the title character, I started thinking, "Oh, hurry 40 NEW YORK NATIVE/DECEMBER 23-29, 1985

Martha Swope

Wedgeworth, with a cloud of frizzy auburn hair and constantly dilating gazes, is enormously comic as her fretful, childlike mother. Will Patton, one of those hot, hunky, dangerous Shepard brothers, storms about with malevolent high spirits. Harvey Keitel, the fool for love who's nearly killed his wife, glowers like a lump of uranium in the desert night. Aidan Quinn, his blazing blue eyes working overtime, raises innumerable laughs as a "good" sibling stranded with his crazed in-laws. Then, of course, there's Geraldine Page playing Geraldine Page, and who can ask for anything more?

Well, I can ask for some new material from the author. I get the feeling (unless it's just wishful thinking) that A Lie of the Mind could be Shepard's last stand in this mined-

The Mystery of Edwin Drood: (l-r) Cleo Laine, Betty Buckley, and George Rose. up and get to the voting!" For, as you've heard by now, the audience gets to vote on the identity of the detective Dick Datchery, as well as the murderer. And, so the evening

can end happily, a pair of heterosexual (no other option is presented) lovers from the remaining central characters.

It is the gimmick of the voting that pro-

Martha Swope

Theater

A Lie of the Mind quite possibly represents Shepard's clearance sale, and he'll be on to other dramatic territory.

out vein of writing. With all of his old metaphorical bric-a-brac on display here, A Lie of the Mind quite possibly represents Shepard's clearance sale, and he'll be moving on to other dramatic territory. High time, too.

It's a pity that The Boys of Winter ever went to Broadway. It had no place there, sad to say, since the expense account rounders and the Great Neck ladies in pearls have little use for a play about Vietnam. As for the theater faggots, well, my dears, the comely Matt Dillon did take his shirt off in a foolin-around bump-and-grind, but that's hardly worth $29.50.

John Pielmeier's play was not, however, as lousy as you heard it dished around town the other week. Despite structural flaws and inaccuracies about military life, and no specific theme except war's bad and makes you crazy (especially in Vietnam), the play did have its powerful moments. While most of that stemmed from an exemplary cast accomplishing near-wonders, Pielmeier does pull off some startlingly good word-pictures, which makes me hope the critical killing he got doesn't send him off to TV-land forever.

D. W. Moffett, who you know from The Normal Heart and An Early Frost, gave a performance of tight-lipped, brooding strength as the lieutenant who wipes out a family of seven, one for each of his men killed on a jungle patrol. Among those men, Brian Tartantina left one breathless with his riveting, writhing death scene; Tony Plana was blisteringly macho as the junked-up Sarge; and Ving Rhames (who was so good in Map of the World earlier this season) had little to say as the sullen Doc, but made every word count tenfold. Matt Dillon's stage debut as a down-home boy showed that he can effectively hold together a theatrical characterization. Let's hope we see more of him on stages about town. If the producers had been smart and put The Boys of Winter in an Off-Broadway theater, the show might have lived to see the spring.

vides much of the evening's entertainment. The English music hall format that surrounds the story provides numerous opportunities for the company, particularly George Rose as the narrator, to ad lib commentary to and about the audience. It also casts some of the company as onstage theater patrons, who can conveniently applaud at the appropriate moments, just in case the real paying customers aren't particularly motivated to do so.

Rose does a nice turn as the narrator, Howard McGillin is good and disgusting as the logical villain of the piece, and Jana Schneider provides funny and believable broad music hall humor in the role of Helena Landless, a woman with "an accent of no easily determined geographical origin."

But it is the voting procedure that is the real star of the show, which so excites some of the Broadway patrons ("Isn't this wild?'') that they're willing to overlook Rupert Holmes's lackluster score, Graciela Daniele's undistinguished choreography, and Wilford Leach's uninspired direction. I must admit I had a good time assisting "Miss Sarah Cook" (Karen Giombetti) in the tallying of the votes for our section of the orchestra. Even though the murderer I voted for didn't win.