Tue 21 Oct, 2008
Red Angel - REVIEW
Filed under: REVIEWSTags: 2 STARS, LiveWire Chicago Theatre, the side project theatre
By Venus Zarris
My Mom called me a few nights ago with a little family gossip. An uncle, on his third or fourth marriage now, will soon be back in the land of the swinging singles as his current wife packed a bag and walked out. In perhaps one of the most clichéd moves an older man can make, the announcement also came with the news that he will be purchasing a new convertible sports car.
I mention this family update because the entire time I watched playwright Eric Bogosian’s Red Angel, I couldn’t help but imagine my uncle pulling up in his flashy automotive overcompensatory extension of manhood. This story of a narcissist’s mid-life crisis is exasperating, but the added melodramatic trappings of a writer lamenting about the complexities of writing made me wish for the car instead of the story.
In a somewhat homage to Josef von Sternberg’s 1930 film, The Blue Angel, Bogosian shows the self-destructive potential of an infatuated self-absorbed person. When arrogant novelist David Blau decides to play a little ‘cat and mouse’ with a sexy student at the college where he is teaching, the game turns on him to pathetic end.
The play opens with four characters returning to the home of the writer after an academic gathering. Blau, the professor of the bunch, is obviously thrilled to have an audience for his self-fascination. He dominates the conversation with thinly veiled flirtations in the form of trite pontifications on human sexuality. Two of the students call it an early evening, leaving him and a sexy stranger to get better acquainted and thereby making this essentially a two-person play.
LiveWire Chicago Theatre delivers an interesting production of this tale of sexual domination turned upside down. The real trick to this script is taking less than likeable characters and making us care about their self-created introspective drama. The way to achieve this is to make us believe the characters, because without this believability Red Angel is little more than an exercise in maudlin self-indulgence.
LiveWire gets it half right. Erin Barlow is believably complex and mysterious as Leena. She pushes all of David’s buttons by clearly playing on his insecurities masked as bravado. He has an obvious ego to easily stroke and for someone who fancies himself to be so intelligent, his guard is down with the first sign of interest in his work. Barlow gradually peels back the layers of her character’s complicated intentions and motivations, delivering a performance that serves the twisted sexual role-playing game well and keeps the audience engaged and guessing.
Steve Wilson creates a one-dimensional rendering of David, thereby making the audience wonder why a character like Leena would even consider sticking around for a glass of wine. His acting choices are sophomoric and self-conscious. He has no believable chemistry with any of the other characters. It is almost as if he is choosing a presentational acting approach that contrasts the natural approach of the rest of the cast.
Wilson has the added challenge of playing a character that is older than the actor’s actual age, which we don’t buy for a minute. Instead of becoming the character, he acts the way he thinks the character would behave.
And so, the intrigue of the game playing and sexual tension is lop-sided. To her great credit, Barlow salvages an interesting rendering of the material but you can’t help but wonder how high the sparks would fly if she were playing against a comparable actor.
Anders Jacobsen’s scenic design creates excellent detail and surprising visual depth, given the small space at The Side Project Theatre. Erin Branson’s lighting design is attractive but sloppily executed and Aleks Zarnitsyn’s sound design is awkward. His choice of elevator music, during the scenes where the actors exit the set for implied sex in an off-stage bedroom, creates almost laughable moments.
LiveWire Chicago Theatre has obvious talent and ambition. I can’t help but think when they hit their stride the results will be staggering but for now they resemble a work in progress. Red Angel is a satisfactory show and Erin Barlow’s risk-taking performance is exceptionally strong, but the production falls short of making a complete connection.
2 STARS
(”Red Angel” runs through November 9 at The Side Project Theatre, 1439 West Jarvis. 312-533-4666.)
Peep-Show Afterthought
Live theater is an unpredictable animal. You simply never now what is going to happen, both off as well as on stage. This observation is more than likely unique to the particular performance that we attended but it is so strange that I feel compelled to share it.
Adding an uncomfortable aspect to the already explicit sexuality of Red Angel, the performance was attended by mostly solitary older men. This created an inadvertent peep-show effect during Erin Barlow’s more sexually provocative scenes. My partner and I were the only women in the audience and one man made direct and deliberate eye contact with us whenever the scenes became graphic. We commented after the show that the look on his face was so subtly lecherous, that it felt like being on the train late at night with a public masturbator.
Hopefully Ms. Barlow was so focused on the play that she missed the voyeuristic vibe. And to her credit, if she was aware of it, it didn’t detract from her powerful performance.
3 Responses to “Red Angel - REVIEW”
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Paul Rekk says:
Oh, wow, Venus, that peep show afterward is a bit much, don’t you think?
I sincerely doubt that a Bogosian play that opened last week in the hardly Red Light District of Rogers Park has somehow earned the reputation as a destination for lonely gentlemen looking to get their voyeuristic kicks — there are plenty of places, theatrical or no, that specialize in that sorta deal. And advertise to their demographic. I obviously cannot speak towards any looks you got from one man, but the fact that you hit a night with an odd audience demographic shouldn’t be construed to speak towards the character of either the work or the audience. And doing so to either only ends up insulting both.
admin says:
‘This observation is more than likely unique to the particular performance that we attended but it is so strange that I feel compelled to share it.’
My partner sat at the back of the theater and I sat at the front. When we left the theater this was an observation that we both had, independently of each other, which is one of the reasons that it struck me as a particularly unusual occurrence.
Thanks for your comment!
Milena says:
Your blog is very observational and engaging. Thank you for doing such nice work:)