ENTERTAINMENT

Two dark comedies for the Age of AIDS

Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver

The Working Theatre

Escape From Happiness by Barry Walters Dobama Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

Nicky Silver's Pterodactyls is a dazzling and witty comedy for our times. Silver applies a 90s gay sensibility to the traditional territory of Philip Barry (Philadelphia Story) with a nod to Thornton Wilder (The Skin of Our Teeth). Beneath its glittering surface, the play looks at serious issues in the gay community.

George Walker's Escape From Happiness is a quirky, and often amusing, comedy that, despite its vaunting of so-called "post-modernist" techniques, never rises above its pop media sources. While making us laugh outrageously, Silver reveals some of the darkest feelings aroused by the AIDS epidemic. Walker's laughter is all surface, and he wears his "feminism" like the latest fashion.

dactyls (coproduced with the Cleveland Public Theatre), which I saw in a preview performance, is an altogether more satisfying evening in the theatre. Silver's language is subtler and more highly polished than Walker's; his talent is more original. Pterodactyls is a dysfunctional family comedy set in the Age of AIDS. It is a brave play that laughs in the face of death and the possible extinction of the human race.

Silver is deft at pushing his characters' level of denial to absurd extremes in a plot that works a gay twist on the traditional love

HANK SKLADANOWSKI

Dale R. Van Niel and Brian Pedaci in Pterodactyls.

Walker is a prolific Canadian playwright whose work is inspired by pop and media culture. Escape from Happiness is about a family mother, three daughters, and ex-alcoholic father-living in the disintegrating world of East Toronto. It is plotted like a made-for-TV movie, although Walker's characters are too off-center for TV, and his gift for comic dialogue is too literate for the small screen.

The production of Escape from Happiness at Dobama Theatre is generally amusing if somewhat uneven. Director Leslie Swackhamer's production opts for a style that is more like TV sitcom than the fastpaced and sophisticated pop art cartoon that Walker seemed to have in mind. The laughs come regularly, but the production gradually bogs down in plot, and, with a three hour running time, it is a long haul.

The high point of the production is Victoria Karnafel's performance as Mary Ann, the middle daughter, who is in therapy in an attempt to deal with her weak sense of self. Karnafel's sense of comic timing is superb. She is so utterly believable that we laugh with her rather than at her. Joseph P. Timperio and Allen Branstein are hilarious as a pair of petty criminals caught in a plot they are barely able to comprehend. They come closest to achieving the style Walker seems to

want.

As the sly and somewhat batty mother, Nora, Evie McElroy has some of Walker's funniest lines. Her performance is marred by the disingenous quality of her obvious sense of her own cuteness. Carla Petroski hasn't a clue as to how to play policewoman Dian Black. Her role is central to the plot, and her performance is largely responsible for the failure of the third act. Perhaps the most problematic performance is that of Juliette Johnson as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth, a lawyer involved in unmasking police brutality. Walker exploits this character's supposed "lesbianism" for cheap laughs. Johnson plays her as a painfully obvious tough, but closeted dyke who is later transformed into a hysterical manbasher. There is neither subtlety nor intelligence in Johnson's work. The shrill monotony of her hysteria drains much of the potential humor out of her scenes in the second half of the play.

The Working Theatre production of Ptero-

triangle. The play is poised between comedy of manners and farce. Craig Rich's production is not entirely successful in finding a necessary blend of the two styles. He too often opts for farce and sacrifices some of Silver's subtleties.

The error of Rich's choice is most obvious in the performances of Joan Fuglewicz as alcoholic Grace Duncan and Jay T. Imel as self-absorbed and abusive Arthur Duncan. They are not the slightly disoriented patricians of Silver's main-line Philadelphia. They are played as cartoon-like suburban midwesterners who seem out of place in the elegant surroundings of David Glowacki's set and are not at home with the sophisticated conceits of Silver's dialogue.

The Duncans' daughter, Emma, has repressed so much of her childhood that she has no memory left. The role is a brilliant comic invention and Carrie King plays it with panache. Dale Van Neil is engagingly awkward as Tommy McKorkle, Emma's fiance, whom she met in Salad City where he works as a waiter. Van Neil perfectly captures the feminine side of Tommy when he takes on the job, and puts on the dress, of the Duncans' maid.

The Duncan's son Todd is at the focus of the action in Pterodactyls. He has returned home because he has AIDS and needs a place to stay. Todd represents the reality the rest of his family denies. His actions betray a reality many of us are unwilling to confront. He is both an angel of death and a prophet of the end of the world. Brian Pedaci plays Todd with great sensitivity. He is the center that holds the play and the production together.

Pterodactyls is a daring and assured piece of writing. Silver blends farcical action with the harshest reality using the polished wit of high comedy as a glue to hold the play's disparate elements together. Monologues addressed directly to the audience are placed like musical motifs between the dramatic scenes. When, in the final scene, reality pushes comedy aside, Silver tempers his nihilistic vision with poetic effects. The Working Theatre deserves praise for succeeding as well as it does with such difficult material. Both shows continue through October 9.✔

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