A brave shocker about gender, fantasies, Fonda
Woooeeee. Theatre Exile's sensational production of Sheila Callaghan's wild ride of a play, That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play, is not to be missed. Just when you thought you were so downtown, so shockproof, so cool, along comes a show that really shocks. And it shocks purposefully. And it's funny. And it's a chance to see five knockout performances by some very brave actors under Joe Canuso's masterful direction.
W
oooeeee.
Theatre Exile's sensational production of Sheila Callaghan's wild ride of a play,
That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play
, is not to be missed. Just when you thought you were so downtown, so shockproof, so cool, along comes a show that really shocks. And it shocks purposefully. And it's funny. And it's a chance to see five knockout performances by some very brave actors under Joe Canuso's masterful direction.
Well, OK, OK, but what is it about? you reasonably ask. Good question. It's about gender roles and male fantasies and media pandering and schlock jocks. Everybody, male and female, is nasty. The play is anti-men, anti-women, anti-violence, anti-war, anti-bourgeoisie, anti-sleaze - all while being violent and sleazy. As one character says, "Let's get subtexty."
Valerie and Agnes (Christie Parker and Charlotte Ford) are on a mission: They seduce men at right-wing conventions ("Keep your laws off my body"), then shoot them in the face. Then they blog about it. Then it turns out these violent, superhot, crazy, slutty women are characters in a screenplay being written by Owen (Allen Radway), who replays their scenes with his pal Rodney (Jered McLenigan) as genders are bent and roles reversed.
A male writer, attempting to create female characters, invents fulfillments of his male fantasies. As part of the job he enacts the female roles (Radway giving birth to a bloody doll, then nursing it; or Radway, wearing a yellow gown, smitten with rock star McLenigan in an outrageously sexy silhouetted scene).
There is an elegant dinner party scene, followed by Jell-O wrestling, along with bizarre humping and bumping and an extended scene of long-distance tongue kissing. (Trying to describe this show is a fool's errand.) But wait - there's more: Weaving in and out of this jokey nonlinearity is Jane Fonda (Amy Smith), who links all the themes as Barbarella-turned-Hanoi Jane-turned-fitness guru.
The generic hotel bedroom set (designed by the endlessly inventive Jorge Cousineau) is replaced by a projected image of itself, and then that image is deleted, erased, removed to reveal the real room again; on the television in the room is our Jane Fonda leading a workout session, frozen in midkick by the pause button. J. Paul Nicholas choreographed the fights - bloody, noisy, and ridiculously believable.
In critiquing all this gender and media mayhem by using image after image of mayhem, Callaghan has her cake and eats it, too; her characters "spread their damage on a silver platter and say: Munch it, baby."
That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play
Presented by Theatre Exile at Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St. Through Dec. 5. Tickets $15-$40 Information: 215-218-4022 or www.theatreexile.org.
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