The Brooklyn-based theater company The Debate Society has pulled off a neat hat trick. They have transformed the entire upstairs theater at PS. 122 into a Drive-in movie. Car speakers are hitched to posts alongside the seats and there are coolers filled with individual bags full of popcorn (different varieties) at the end of the aisles. The stage itself is the backside of a decaying Drive-in movie complete with admission kiosk. This pitch perfect design is by Karl Allen while Mike Riggs' lighting keeps the environment in a perpetual dusk-into-night quality. Nathan Leigh's soundscape evokes eerie unidentified night sounds. It's just too bad we didn't get a decent movie with the surroundings.

The Debate Society is comprised of the collaborations of Oliver Butler (director) and Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen (actor/writers). While the three intersecting vignettes that make up Cape Disappointment are scripted, there is an improvisational quality to the work that feels unnecessary (possibly due to it being the second preview the night I attended). The three sections comprise a brother and sister whose car runs out of gas in the woods behind the drive-in; two dimwitted salesmen on their way to Hollywood who hit a dog in the road and finally the traveling escapades of a young girl and the pedophile who has kidnapped her. The various stories never gel into anything complete but they all share a creepy 1950's horror movie feel (although the pedophile story is just downright disturbing). In addition to actors Bos and Thureen (both quite good throughout), the evening is rounded out by Michael Cyril Creighton (very good as the petulant brother) and theater veteran Pamela Payton-Wright (who plays a crazy back-woods Ma Kettle in one vignette). Butler's sustained Grand Guignol effects are the most impressive part of the evening. With all the talent on display, the real disappointment of the evening is that the only thing fulfilling is the popcorn.

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