NOVEMBER 26, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

ENTERTAINMENT

Bent lines, tangled farce and odd couplings

Love's Tangled Web The Working Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

The Working Theatre production of the late Charles Ludlam's farce, Love's Tangled Web, is theatrical and ridiculous. If you can imagine a night of uninhibited sex between late nineteenth century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and contemporary American dramatist Edward Albee, you'll have an idea of the substance and sensibility of Ludlam's play. The hopelessly tangled plot parodies Ibsen, notably Ghosts, while the surface subtly mocks some of Albee's pretensions. It is an odd

coupling rendered all the more perversely delicious by being filtered through Ludlam's own uniquely deviant style.

The play starts with the return of the Woodville family-matriarch Eve, her handicapped daughter Sylvia, and son Ethelbert (Bertie)-to their Long Island mansion for the reading of Colonel Woodville's will. They are accompanied by Pastor Fenwick Bates who, although rather too actively involved with his wards at the orphanage for young boys, has been wooing Eve for her money. Handyman and gardener, Bram, and his fiance, Raeanne, the paranormal girl next door, complete the cast. When it is learned Sylvia, more schem-

Narrative diminishes mysticism

PHOTO: SUSAN TELECKY

Lisa Black, Holly Holsinger and Asha Padamadan (left to right) in CPT's The Dybbuk.

The Dybbuk

Cleveland Public Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

The Dybbuk, currently at the Cleveland Public Theatre, is the work of the New World Performance Laboratory, the collaborative ensemble formed by James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta in 1992. The NWPL brings together theater artists from diverse cultures and ethnic backgrounds with the stated goals "to research performance techniques from around the world, and to develop a contemporary training and performance methodology for culturally diverse American theater artists." They are the only ensemble in Cleveland devoted to exploring the kinds of aesthetic questions that interested their distinguished mentors, Grotowski, Barba and Brook. The success of their training is manifest in the vocal and physical skills of the actors. In all the company's work that I have seen, there is striking visual sensibility present: a sense of beauty and composition that is rare in Cleveland theater. Unfortunately Jairo Cuesta's staging of S. Ansky's The Dybbuk-a classic of the Eastern European Yiddish theater-is a singularly unengaging evening of theater and points up some of the ensemble's fundamental weaknesses.

The production reduces Ansky's text to the bare bones of its plot. Khonnon, a brilliant but poor student, who has been dabbling in the mystical traditions, is in love with Leye, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. When her father announces her betrothal to another man, Khonnon dies, and his spirit (a dybbuk) takes possession of Leye on her wedding day. The exorcism of the dybbuk and the union of the lovers in death completes the action. The reduction of the text to a bald narrative diminishes the very qualities that seemed to attract the company to the work: its mysticism and its exploration of the folklore tradition in Jewish culture.

With the exception of Holly Holsinger's performance of Leye, the actors fail to create theatrically dynamic characters. This

may be partly a function of the text which gives them little to work with, but it also seems to be a function of an emphasis on technique and a failure to connect with the material. As actors, they seem not present, which is all the more surprising considering the philosophy of the ensemble. There is an odd "classroom" quality about the actors' work, which I have observed in other NWPL productions as well. They know what they are doing, but they don't seem to believe in

it.

The production is not totally lacking in theatrical interest. It is often beautiful to watch. The salmon colored back wall, the white curtain, the oriental carpets, the solid roughhewn table and benches, the handcrafted props, and the use of candles create an exquisite space in which Cuesta composes striking theatrical images. Also to the production's credit is Linda Eisenstein's music. Her "Wedding Song" for Leye, beautifully sung by Holsinger, eloquently captures both the character and the culture and indicates where this production might have gone.

For me a key to the production's failure is found in Cuesta's notes in my press packet. He says, "The actors with whom I work every day can become my family, and the way we work, my tradition. In our company we come from different cultures, countries and languages, but rarely do we remember the country of the other. We are fellow actors working together. Is this interculturalism, humanism?" This is not the interculturalism defined by dramaturg Lisa Wolford in her program note. It is closer to the kind of liberal humanism so prominent in American intellectual culture. And, as cultural critic Terry Eagleton aptly notes, “Liberal humanism is an essentially bourgeois ideology.” There is only a vague "interest" in Jewish culture in the production of The Dybbuk, and the results look more like exploitation and appropriation of the exotic other than the real confrontation and dialogue that interculturalism demands. The production finally seems like an exploration of craft for its own sake, and I find that to be profoundly self-indulgent and tedious.

ing bitch than pathetic invalid, is the sole heir to her father's fortune, Bram and Bates vie for her affections. Bram, who was Sylvia's lover 10 years earlier, tries to blackmail her into marrying him. In the course of the action there is quite a wide range of sexual activity between the various characters. You'll have to watch and listen closely to figure out who did what with whom, but trust me when I say that none of it is terribly straight.

Acting Ludlam involves using broad stereotypes and exaggerated gestures with a knowing delight. The Working Theatre performers work hard at trying to capture the appropriate style but are not entirely successful in achieving it: when they are good they are very funny, but in off moments, their work seems forced. The one exception to this caveat is Ted Burr whose drag performance of Eve is perfect. He relishes the exaggerated theatricality of his every gesture, never letting us forget that he's a man enjoying dressing up as a woman: this doubleness is the essence of Ludlam's anarchic spirit. Joan Fuglewicz, in a blonde beehive wig and pink plaid tent of a dress, turns Raeanne into a figure out of a John Waters film, and she is often divine in the part. As lusty and greedy, Bram, John Kolibab has a nicely demented and sweaty charm. Dan Call is prissy as sexually innocent Bertie who finds his true vocation after discovering the joys of sodomy and the pleasures of rough sex. As the pedophile Pastor, William Martin Jean is appropriately unctuous and self-righteous. Casting Cleveland drag queen Richard M[elissa] Ross in the role of Sylvia seemed like a good idea, but her

desire to act like a woman is at odds with the doubleness that Ludlam played on when he used drag in his work. Although not bad in the part, s/he never achieves the real sense of the ridiculous that Ted Burr so well embodies.

Director Walter Grodzick is good at orchestrating the often chaotic and lunatic twists and turns of the plot. He makes excellent use of a series of running gags as well as numerous slapstick devices. One senses he shares Ludlam's joyous taste for the obvious theatrical effect, and he never tries to conceal the play's essential queerness. He's ably supported by designer Rob Wolin's witty drawing room in the vibrant blue and red of baroque religious painting. Denajua's costumes are inspired and amusing. Ross is given a different outfit for each entrance: she's a bright colored fantasia of beading, paillettes, feathers, Fortuny pleats and ruffles.

In Ludlam's non-Euclidean geometry of a text, there are no straight lines. If you are queer you'll laugh heartily at his farcical celebration of the not-normal. Straight audiences will laugh too, and, perhaps unwittingly, get a little bit bent in the process. One day or another, we all get hopelessly tangled in our own webs of love. What Ludlam seems to have known is that laughter can help protect us from the spiders in our midst, or in our own hearts.

Performances of Love's Tangled Web continue through December 5; ThursdaySaturday at 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm. Tickets are $10 and $7.50 (students and seniors). The Working Theatre is at Pilgrim Church, 2592 W. 14th St. in Tremont. For reservations telephone 696-9600.

(216) 458-4533

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