Theatre in Review: Carnival Round the Central Figure (IRT Theatre) The Central Figure of the title of Diana Amsterdam's play - indeed located at the center of the stage -- is a middle-aged man wasting away from some terrible disease. Or it's a young woman, dying well before her time, and, for her sins, being made an example of immoral -- and therefore lethal --behavior. Or maybe it's just Exhibit A in a series of lectures being given by a psychologist who believes that just because every human being who ever lived has died doesn't mean that someone, somewhere, isn't going to eventually cheat the grave. In fact, the Central Figure is all of these things, and, for the play's 90 minutes of running time, he lies there, wasted and white-skinned, while everyone else carries on around him. Once in a while, he sits up and screams; I know exactly how he feels. Carnival Round the Central Figure has been written with the earnest intention of exploring why, in our society, we have so much trouble accepting the reality of death. To make this point, Amsterdam has assembled a garish triptych of narratives, each one more hysterical than the one that precedes it. In the first, a woman stares at her husband's wasted body -- he is so ill that it's a triumph when he doesn't vomit half a banana -- frantically pretending that he's getting better by the minute. In the second, a preening televangelist, backed by a sycophantic gospel choir, brings on a middle-aged couple, forcing them to confess that their daughter's "immoral" sexual behavior has led her to the ICU. Between these scenes, that psychologist comes on, making no sense whatsoever and doing battle with a pesky audience member who questions her. Many of the company members were involved in the original staging of Carnival Around the Central Figure in 1996 when they were students at NYU. The date is surprising, because the script feels like something left over from the experimental theatre of the '60s. Thus the woman in the first story blabs on and on about her wifely duties in the manner of a housewife in a vintage television commercial complaining about waxy yellow buildup. Even 14 years ago, the satire of phony pompadoured preachers with oily southern accents must have seemed pretty worn out. I'm guessing that the lecture scenes were conceived as a criticism of New Agers who think disease is all in your head -- think Marianne Williamson and the Course in Miracles -- but, at this point, who really knows? Everything is so broadly, and unamusingly, caricatured that it's all too easy to tune out altogether. (I haven't even mentioned the nurse, who sits on a platform watching the action, and who occasionally draws blood from the Central Figure with an enormous syringe for no apparent reason; it's all supposed to daring and terribly shocking, and, of course, it's nothing of the kind.) Karen Kolhaas, the original director, has returned to stage this production; having seen her do good work on projects as varied as The Pinter Plays at Atlantic Theatre and Judy Gold's hilarious 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, it's hard to see what she's doing here. The mostly young cast executes their one-dimensional assignments nimbly, but the material gives them no opportunities at all. The production does fit snugly into the tiny IRT space on Christopher Street, and it certainly has a look. I can't imagine why three set designers were needed to install two platforms, a small projection screen, and festoons of carnival lights, but, in any event, Walt Spangler, Jisun Kim, and Melissa Shakun have done their work well. Eric Southern's lighting design works some subtle transformations, and Katja Andreiev's color-coordinated costume design is unusually well worked-out for a play on this budget level. Indeed, everyone involved in Carnival Around the Central Figure seems imbued with a sense of mission. They treat the script as a classic long in need of revival. We part company there; to my eyes, this is a clear case of when Bad Plays Happen to Good People.--David Barbour 
|
