Theatre in Review: The Unknown (Studio Seaview) Among creators of solo shows, David Cale is the greatest yarn-spinner, hooking us with a knack for generating suspense and surprise. If he wrote books, they would be called page-turners. The Unknown may be his most accessible piece yet, a low-key thriller so cunningly constructed that you won't see where it is headed until just before the final blackout. The fungibility of identity is Cale's theme, and his skill at keeping one guessing is, if anything, sharper than ever. One of his rare vehicles for another actor, it allows Sean Hayes to showcase another aspect of his prodigious gifts. In a play filled with impersonations and questions of character, it's only appropriate that Elliott, Cale's protagonist, shares many qualities with his author, being a middle-aged gay playwright specializing in monologues. Elliott's strange journey begins when, trying to finish a project, he is packed off by his friends Larry and Chloe to their upstate country house, where, far from the lure of Wi-Fi devices, he can get some serious work done. Then, one night, he hears a male voice singing a song, "I Wish You'd Wanted Me." Unsettlingly, the intruder refuses to identify himself. Even more unnerving, the song is one Elliott wrote for a musical produced several years earlier. Hightailing it back to New York, Elliot finds himself in a Village gay bar, chatting with Keith, a Texan undergoing a late-in-life coming out. Following a fourth red wine, he reluctantly takes Keith home; the next morning, he wakes up alone, having possibly been drugged, with lyrics from "I Wish You Wanted Me" emblazoned on his stomach in magic marker. A little Google research proves that "Keith" is really Joey, an actor who had unsuccessfully auditioned for Elliott's musical. Next, Elliott is contacted by Jack, who has come to collect his mentally ill brother, Joey, who has recently gone off his meds. Joey, we learn, is heterosexual. Jack, by the way, is gay and attracted to Elliott. We're not even halfway through a labyrinthine plot that includes more fake identities, accusations of plagiarism, a half-hearted (yet incriminating) revenge attempt, and a drug-fueled nightmare that includes a cameo appearance by Jude Law. Aiding and abetting these bizarre activities is Elliott, who is peddling a screenplay based on these incidents even as they unfold. Still, even he is forced to wonder what is going on: "I think to myself, what are you doing? Hang in there. You're writing a thriller. Or the thriller is writing itself?" For all the assurance with which Cale dispenses each new twist, The Unknown (a title with more than one meaning) is a poignant portrait of an artist marooned in midlife; Elliott is blocked as a writer, worried about money, and lacking a romantic partner. His relationship with his closest friends, Chloe and Larry, is much more complicated than he initially lets on. The events of the play, initially amusing in a puzzle-box way, drive him to a pained recognition that, in his way, he may be as tormented as Joey, scarred by loneliness and unrequited love. Not that Cale's games are done with; it isn't until the very last moment that we realize how thoroughly we've been had. Leigh Silverman's all-but-flawless direction balances humor and menace as we follow Elliott down some mighty odd psychological corridors. The scenic design, by the partnership Studio Bent, frames the action in a backstage setting fronted by a red curtain and gilded proscenium; it's an appropriate look that also sets us up for the play's punchline. Cha See's lighting, including her eerie sidelight looks and the chases on the upstage wall, is acutely attuned to each shift in mood. Caroline Eng's sound design includes a multitude of effects -- footsteps on leaves, ambient voices in bars and restaurants -- as well as solid reinforcement for Isobel Waller-Bridge's incidental music. Sarah Laux dresses the star suitably. Hayes slips into the role of Elliott with remarkable ease, drawing us into his confidence even as he makes increasingly questionable choices; he also deftly embodies the scarily similar (yet different) Joey and Jack, the concerned and sympathetic Chloe, and the increasingly fed-up Larry. Known for frenetic work on television and justly acclaimed for his portrayal of the living nervous breakdown, Oscar Levant, in Good Night, Oscar, he shows a knack for underplaying that is just what this material needs. Cale has gifted him with the sort of vehicle he can return to for years to come, and it's easy to imagine that there will be a demand for it. --David Barbour 
|
