Blokes and blokettes: Your options are two pieces of theatrical Brit-a-brac. One wears a corset, the other a condom. Or at least it ought to.
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Woman in Mind, Alan Ayckbourn's highly civilized psycho-comedy that opens Las Vegas Little Theatre's new digs, occupies the more mannered, stiff-lipped spectrum of the British stage style. Though the playwright's skewering of family relations is giddily subversive, it's enfolded discreetly into the kind of polite satire that's an acquired taste—understatedly cheeky to some, overwhelmingly dull to others. (The guy next to me kept nodding off and snoring—though to his credit, he kept waking himself up.)
Middle-aged housewife Susie (British newcomer Barbara King) is tending her lovely English garden when she accidentally brains herself with a garden rake. Coming to, she's fussed over by her doting spouse (amusingly cheery Brian Scott), adoring daughter (Katrina Larsen, turning on the sunshine with thousand-watt gusto) and loyal brother (dapper Joel P. Wayman). Wonderful ... except Susie has no doting spouse, adoring daughter or loyal brother. She's got a pompous vicar for a husband (Steve Mills), a sour sister-in-law (delightfully dyspeptic Felicity Belle Salmon, playing the role as if sucking on a whole lemon) and an emotionally distant, disapproving son (JayC Stoddard).
Our heroine revels in her hallucinatory happiness, then grows frightened as the rancid reality of her flesh-and-blood relatives intrudes and Susie tries to suss out fact from fantasy. Ayckbourn scores some solid laughs and uncomfortable truths about the level of marital expectations (ridiculously high) and tolerance for disappointment (alarming low) via a black, absurdist comic setup. For awhile, he even coaxes us to consider dwelling within one's madness as a reasonable alternative to the real-life traps we walk, fall or marry into. But being tightly corseted into such a genteel, drawing-room atmosphere, Woman requires a vigorous staging for both the comedy and drama of its psychology to transcend its good manners.
William Howard III reins in this production to its detriment, his direction exceedingly measured, rather than allowing his actors room to roam the stage and their roles. The blocking is often stiff, even inert, characters confined to certain areas of the stage, and two in particular—Mills' droning husband and Stoddard's resentful son—are left rudderless. The former, especially, is played less as a boor than a bore, anesthetizing nearly every scene he's in.
Still, redeeming pleasures break through most enjoyably in two standout performances: notably leading lady King, her comic timing crackling like freshly-popped bubble-wrap, then U-turning into pathos as her twin realities topple into each other and out of her control; and Rob Tunney, refreshingly daft as the bumbling but kindly doctor who rushes to aid Susie but is increasingly unnerved by what he's bumbled into, his reactions a comic synthesis of jovial cluelessness and saucer-eyed befuddlement.
If Woman is served up like proper afternoon tea, Shopping and F--king comes on like a sweaty late-night lay. It gets in your face while it grabs your crotch. And squeezes.
Mark Ravenhill's uncompromisingly graphic, structurally slipshod slog through psychosexual dynamics and the sins of a consumer culture is the latest act of theatrical tightrope-walking by the adventuresome Test Market troupe. But were it not for lead actor Erik Amblad's indelible safety-net performance amid all the horny hullabaloo and spittle-flying preachiness, it would teeter, totter and splatter.
Be warned: S&F commences with a man vomiting and moves into blood-smeared ass-licking and brutal gay sex, complete with fleeting male frontal nudity and simulated penetration, with stops at drug-dealing and phone sex. Be you fainthearted or stouthearted, it's an eyeful.
The convoluted plot, more or less: In Manchester, England, Mark (Amblad), who's in a vaguely defined, master/slave-like relationship with Lulu and Robbie (Francine Gordon and Ernest Hemmings, who doubles as director), heads for drug rehab, but Lulu and Robbie, at a loss to fend for themselves, fail at jobs and wind up involved in a botched drug sale, leading them to create a phone sex line to pay the debt. Meanwhile, Mark, booted from rehab for licking a man's ass, takes up with teenage prostitute Gary (Tony Blosser), the fragile victim of his stepfather's abuse who's really looking for a "master," a role Mark abandoned at rehab. When, after a symbolic shopping spree, Mark takes Gary home to Lulu and Robbie, everyone's needs collide, to the profound dissatisfaction of all and a physically fearsome finale.
Ravenhill's out to excoriate the lot of us for wallowing in a world in which everything—even relationships, especially relationships—are merely transactions, often conducted with feral, coldhearted calculation. And as the ultimate transactions (except, that is, for love), sex, cash, credit and debit throb at its core. It's a brave, but bombastic play, as subtle as a frying pan to the face, and less effective for it. Ravenhill fumbles most egregiously by detouring into indulgent rants over money and salesmanship, assigned mostly to an oily huckster played by James Perham (who at least imbues them with a fierce, singsong delivery).
But the near miracle is Amblad, an actor of complex shadings. As a man caught between his better angels and his baser instincts, Amblad delivers the most fully formed performance here. He's never less than interesting to watch, conflicting emotions flickering off his expressive face, hinting at eruptions roiling just beneath the skin. Whether playing large or shrinking within himself, Amblad keeps us riveted to Mark's journey.
Shopping and F--king is a ballsy stab at artistic rage. It's meant to provoke and unsettle, and it's ultimately angry and ugly. There's abundant truth to be found there. And enormous discomfort.
Art, even when it fails, has no better reason for being.