Wednesday, October 17, 2012
In 2002, like many a New York commuter, I was sucked in by my fellow strap hangers who were all carrying the same book: The Corrections. Like a fool, I followed the heard and bought the book. Page after page, I grew to hate the characters more and more. And page after page, I kind of started to hate myself for not ending the torturous read. But, given the hundreds of pages and hours of time invested, I was finishing that book no matter how much I hated it.
With that memory still fresh in my mind, when I saw the ad for Transport Theatre Group's production of House for Sale, I thought - there must be something hear. Last year, I LOVED their production of Queen of the Mist so much that I trusted their artistic choices. Alas, with Jonathan Franzen, I should know better - fool me once...
This show is basically one long verbose first-person essay delivered (for reasons I cannot comprehend) by five actors. Franzen tells about his mother's death, his detachment from his family and his mother's earthly possessions - and basically, his utter douchiness. When I crawled through The Corrections, I wanted to hate him since he created the despicable characters that inhabit his narrative - and from the way he so clearly paints their picture, I felt he surely must love them - thus, I wanted to hate him. But, I couldn't be sure how much of him was there. Now I know. And now I am sure that I hate him. He is utterly self-serving, self-congratulating, and foolish enough to disguise a story that should clearly be about his mother in a story that is him, him, him.
In the style of the most bland and unfortunate ethnodrama, this show is a disaster. With moments of unison, overlapping dialogue, repetition, curious wall climbing, and a bizarre Minnie Mouse costume (you have to see it to believe it), this plods along in such a "CRAFTY" way that you can literally see the director's anguish as he tries so desperately to make the undramatic dramatic. The most foolish convention of all is a series of small color-coded strip lights strategically placed around the set - each actor assigned a color - and when their color lights up, they speak. And when it goes dark, they go silent. Was the stage manager telling them when to speak? Prompting them? Going insane trying to keep up? Sometimes messing up, causing ever-so-slight snickers from the cast. We had unwittingly taken a trip to the nut house - and we wanted our money back.
House for Sale is at the Duke on 42nd Street through November 18. Tickets can be purchased here.
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