December 2011 Review by Joe Stead
Stunning and Other Plays by David Adjmi
"Stunning" is probably the most challenging script I have read all year, and also one of the most unexpectedly powerful. Let me state right from the beginning that this is not light reading, even for those of us trained and experienced in play reading. Brooklyn-born playwright David Adjmi, the author of the three fascinating works collected and published under one cover by TCG (Theatre Communications Group), has created a world so tight-knit and insular as to defy comprehension let alone admission. Hang in there, though. The first of the three plays in this new 288 page soft cover collection is indeed "Stunning," and allows you to ponder the many possibilities of that word.
During the first card game scene (a weak start in my opinion to the spiraling drama that unfolds), Adjmi liberally employs forward slashes (//) that he purports to have borrowed from British playwright Caryl Churchill to orchestrate overlapping dialogue and timing. Add to that a sprinkling of Syrian-American terminology, some Spanish phrases, Brooklynese slang and Pig Latin, and you may be joining me in scratching your head too. An example of one scene goes like this. S: Ooday ooyay ink-thay ee-shay eels-stay? L: Uht-way? S: Do you think she eels-stay? L: I don't ow-knay. S: My last aid-may ole-stay ings-thay. And she wasn't an iggr-nay. OK, right from the start you know that race and class warfare are going to be prominent themes here. Fortunately, Adjmi not only resists stereotypes, he explodes them.
In
three acts of harrowing discovery and heartache, we follow the
unusual triangle of a 16 going on 17 child/woman named Lily, her
middle-aged brute of a businessman husband Ike, and her nonconformist
black maid Blanche, who she insists on calling Anna Maria because all
of the maids in her life were "Porto-Rican". Lily and
her family claim to be Jewish, although Blanche quickly sees beyond
the exterior facade, setting up a ribald discussion of racial
identity. Just as Lily wants to be perceived as white, so too
does she insist on keeping her all-white house spotless and
immaculate, to the extent that she keeps troughs of white paint in
every room for convenient touch-ups. Indeed, in this provincial
and well-heeled world of elitists, there can be no room for color or non-conformity.
Enter Blanche, who as an African American woman and lesbian not only resists labels but defies pigeon-holing. She may make her living (for the time at least) scrubbing floors and toilets, but she is nothing if not forceful and determined. The highly intelligent and passionate Blanche claims to hold a PhD in Semiotics and speak four different languages. According to Lily's Alpha male husband Ike, "There's only one language spoken in this world...Gold and Silver baby: money talks". Talk about irony, which Blanche claims she loves, as her own Socialist agenda flies in the face of Ike's flagrant Capitalism like oil and water. Blanche aspires to a teaching job but she is all too aware of the closed doors of the ivory towers known as Academia. In their own respective ways, Blanche and Ike are self-made human beings whose only other common denominator is a mutual love for the innocent and unworldly Lily.
Lily truly is a lost little soul. She sees ghosts, is terrified of being alone, and barely has a middle school education. Her name isn't even on the shared bank account, and her relationships to the much older Ike and Blanche could well be seen as child/parent surrogate protector/enabler. The 43-year-old Blanche isn't having any of that sympathy crap though. "You think cuz you ain't equipped to handle life you ain't accountable?," Blanche lights in. "Nobody cares if you lose, the world's full of losers! You gotta rip yourself up and start over!" There is an interesting allusion to the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back. The perilous journey that David Adjmi sends his characters on explores identity, individuality verses conformity, personal responsibility and the direct effects of personal choices. At once bewildering (at least on page), "Stunning" is ultimately a riveting and provocative thriller.
Adjmi's
blisteringly funny and unique voice comes across even louder in the
second entry of this collection, "The Evildoers," which one
critic aptly described as "Dinner With Friends...gone to
Hell". Going from the tight-knit enclave of the specific
Brooklyn Jewish/Syrian/American community of "Stunning" to
the wealthy, cynical, self-obsessed and self-hating so-called
"Christian" WASP couples he portrays in "The
Evildovers," Adjmi proves himself to be an equal opportunity
exorcist. Adjmi's ability to leave you laughing out loud in one
breath and gasping in shock at the next seems to be his calling
card. And he does so not only in the second, but also the third
(and possibly best) entry, "Elective Affinities".
Originally commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre in London nearly a
decade ago, this virtuoso one-woman monologue just had its U.S.
premiere last month Off Broadway.
Imagine Adjmi's lacerating words coming from the mouths of one of the Grande dames of our contemporary theatre (the legendary Zoe Caldwell, who played the role of Alice in New York, Holland Taylor perhaps, or our own wonderful Paula Scrofano) and "Elective Affinities" fairly jumps off the page, spitting cyanide-laced tea right in your eye. The author conceals the venom of a coiled python within the fashionable, well-heeled and thoroughly charming society matron welcoming us into her inner psyche. The piece was envisioned as an intimate, site-specific soiree, perhaps with tea and scones. Our hostess may not have seen the world first hand, but that hasn't stopped her from having an opinion of it, and most importantly, human relations.
Almost like a social anthropologist, Alice takes us through her candid thoughts on human rights with a sort of common sense Darwinian ideology. No one approves of torture, of course, but if it came down to defending the life of your child or spouse, who wouldn't agree with the extermination of human pesticides? Anybody would, wouldn't they? As Alice explains, "Nature is very cruel. Nature confers no rights." Why then should a terrorist or political prisoner have more rights than the wild prey feasted upon so graphically on televised animal programs?
The innate value of all human beings? Preposterous! Sure, it's nice to be nice to people, but when it comes right down to it, the very inclusion of one person or group in one's life automatically means the exclusion of everyone else in the world. Monstrous, you wonder? Perhaps, but as Alice reckons, "Maybe that's what you need to be when you're protecting the thing you love. I love my husband, I love my friends. Other people, I am indifferent to them". This simple logic gives our speaker the tolerance "to permit horrible things, torture, murder, genocide and that sort of thing." Adjmi penetrates to the root of our natural indifference as human beings like a laser, with excoriating humor and truth. For more information on TCG books visit the online bookstore at www.tcg.org.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing since
1984. He served as founder, producer and Artistic Director of
Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland and Four Star Players
in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions have included "Life
With Father," "Deathtrap," "The Odd Couple,"
"The Miracle Worker," "Brighton Beach Memoirs,"
"You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and
"Godspell". He has also performed leading roles in
"Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin," "The
Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and most
recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for Waukegan
Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial Art from
Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has reviewed
everything from Broadway to community theatre and major regional
theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Goodspeed Opera
House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).