Jacob Davis Danny Casolaro Died for You is the story of how the playwright’s cousin was found with his wrists slashed in a West Virginia hotel room under suspicious circumstances. Orlando’s story could easily have slid into propaganda or a boring series of interviews with lawyers and bankers, but instead, is the sort of psychological thriller more often seen on film than onstage.
Over about twenty-eight narrative footnotes, we learn that how dysfunctional this family is. Mike Nussbaum, who is as old as the Goodman, plays a senile clown twenty-three years his junior, Violet’s father. He still insists on the authority due to him as a colonel, but has the memory and continence of a goldfish and has to re-discover his wife’s death every day. Violet’s daughter Beauty (Catherine Combs) eats dirt, so that’s what Violet feeds her.
The actors have all found ways to incorporate Miller’s wordiness into their characters. Spencer and Montemurro spit syllables like machine-guns, but I always understood them, and accepted this behavior as a tic of people constantly anxious over their self-delusions. Spencer captures the defiant cheeriness of a man who knows he’s controversial for things he’d rather move past. You can see how Joe Keller charms people despite their better judgment. Montemurro’s Kate scares people into humoring her as much as she demands pity. Despite living in denial, she shares her husband’s ability to alternatively brow-beat and seduce people for her pragmatic purposes.
The main character is surprisingly underwritten for how much Cowhig wanted a strong female lead; I have a hard time describing Sunny other than saying she is a Ke$ha fan and bursts into action when the plot requires it. Lim does her best with what she has to work with. I vastly preferred Long in her other role, the mid-wife Wang Hua, in which she was vibrantly funny, and played well off of Iskandar. His and Jue’s physical comedy supplied my favorite moments of the show.
Entering Theo Ubique’s space in the No Exit Café feels like going back in time, an illusion aided by Bill Morey’s Act I costumes. Kellie Cundiff (soprano), Christopher Logan (baritone), Jordan Phelps (tenor), Michael Reyes (bass), and Jill Sesso (mezzo) appear as gritty early twentieth century tramps. The men’s angular facial hair and makeup put a skeletal accent on their cheekbones. I felt drawn into the dissolute Berlin cabaret of the 1920’s world before the music had even started.
Filament Theatre’s latest production is the manic, uproarious, forth wall-destroying story of Scottish teenager Duck Macatarsney’s (Lindsey Dorcus) struggle to care for her multiple sclerosis-stricken father. The Ducati Monster motorcycle Duck is named after has been lying in the hallway ever since her mother was killed while riding it, although as the doo-wop chorus helpfully explains, it is really a metaphor for our refusal to face our problems. Duck and her father, Duke (Andrew Marchetti), live in filth; he self-medicates with marijuana while she cleans up after him and writes a novel based on Harry Potter and Twilight with herself as the protagonist