Theatre in Review: Iowa (Playwrights Horizons)

	April Mathis, Jill Shackner, Annie McNamara, Carolina Sanchez, Cindy Cheung. Photo: Joan Marcus

Iowa is billed as a new musical play, but this is a misnomer, since it is only nominally musical and it certainly isn't a play. Defining it is a tricky business; let's call it the biggest head-scratcher of the season and leave it at that.

Following a brief lyric prologue, Iowa begins with an adolescent girl, Becca, coming home to discover that her mother, Sandy, has just become engaged to Roger, a man she met on Facebook (and has yet to see in real life), and, furthermore, they are moving to Iowa to live with him. Becca is, quite reasonably, horrified. The scene that follows is a cascade of inane dialogue, all of it delivered in the same breathless, fast-paced manner, as if each line contained vital information. For example, when Sandy realizes that Becca is 14, not 12, she says, "Impossible./Seems like just yesterday I was a shy little zygote,/Slithering down the fallopian tube./Isn't it amazing?/ After all these years, I still miss slithering./Ah, to be an embryo.../Without a care in the womb." (The play is written in a very blank verse.)

A little later, Sandy decides to have a facts-of-life talk with Becca: "Moving on./In conclusion, do as I say, not as I do./Everything in moderation. Your body is a temple and so on and so forth./I'm glad we had this little chat./ Regarding masturbation, it does not cause blindness./As far as I can see./Beware of ovulation./Leads to bouts of menstruation./Highly contagious./Oftentimes fatal." It will do the cause of clarity no good to note that every time Sandy mentions her fondness for ponies, an actor, in a suit with a horse's head and tail and four hooves, clomps across the stage.

Speaking of horses, Sandy gives Becca's friend, Amanda, a bunch of hay. ("No need to barf it up./High fiber./Low carbs./You'll be pooping out your brains in no time./Super filling.") Amanda gives the hay to a cheerleader who turns up, more or less out of nowhere. Later on, the cheerleader is pursued by the rest of her squad, who are upset that the hay has given them diarrhea. Did I mention that Sandy shows up in a burqa, under which she wears short shorts and trashy gold high heels? Or the chorus of Nancy Drews, each of them representing a different ethnicity? And, as always happens in a play like this -- if there can be said to be plays like this -- somebody will come out in a lamé gown and sing a torch song. Here the task is assigned to Sandy, who tries to make a running leap up onto the piano at upstage right, but doesn't quite make it; instead she hangs there for a moment, her legs dangling in ungainly fashion.

I will point out that when Sandy and Becca get to Iowa -- remember Iowa? -- Roger is revealed to be a polygamous Mormon with a chorus of sister wives who take up most of the rest of the show with their mundane concerns; also, a little girl, who began the show with a mysterious song, befriends Becca; she plans to travel to Mars. Eventually, everyone gets together to sing about the joys of Iowa. ("I like Iowa. I like Iowa. I like Iowa. I-o-wa.")

Watching Iowa, I was reminded of the old Kaufman and Hart line: "The whole thing couldn't be a typographical error, could it?" Then I decided that the play represents a new genre: the theatre of non sequitur. There is no plot. There are no real characters. There is no discernible theme, just an interminable hour and 45 minutes of whimsy, a series of cartoon captions without any reference point.

Anyway, the text is by Jenny Schwartz, the lyrics are by Schwartz and Todd Almond, and the monotone musical score is by Almond. Iowa has been directed, with more care than you might imagine, by Ken Rus Schmoll. It has an interesting set by Dane Laffrey, an anonymous all-purpose room with an upstage wall that opens up to reveal a rural landscape with a farm house. The entire cast discharges their tasks with remarkable flexibility and grace. The lighting designer, Tyler Micoleau, provides a series of oddly lovely colorful skies. The costumes, by Arnulfo Maldonado, run the gamut from everyday wear to cheerleader uniforms, multiple accurate recreations of Nancy Drew's twinset, and pastel variations on the long, super-modest dresses worn by Mormon wives. The sound is by Daniel Kluger.

Watching Iowa, it occurred to me that Schwartz and Almond were trying to revive the old Theatre of the Absurd. If so, in this -- and this alone -- Iowa can be said to be a success. It certainly is absurd. -- David Barbour