The Potomac Theater Project is back in town from their Washington D. C. base for a second annual summer residency. This year's program is comprised of three shows from the company's repertory all politically stimulating and emotionally intense (in keeping with PTP's mandate). They are Sarah Kane's Crave, Neil Bell's Somewhere in the Pacific (New York premiere) and Howard Barker's (a PTP favored author) Scenes from an Execution. "Crave" and "Pacific" shares a double bill while "Execution" is a stand alone evening.
Sarah Kane's Crave is not so much a play as a 45 minute howl of pain which opens with a spiritual soundtrack including snatches of the hymn "Rock of Ages". It's a fragmented psychodrama about the loss of faith in love, in life, in the very need for human connection.
Photo: Stan Barouh
Four characters (two men named A and B; two women named C and M possibly representing different parts of one psyche) vocally intertwine to create a portrait of self-laceration and despair. The woman named C (Stephanie Strohm) is the most stable and lucid of the voices while man A (Adam Ludwig) despite a conservative bent seems to be a sexual predator. Woman M (Stephanie Janssen) and Man B (Rishabh Kashyap) are the more unstable and psychically damaged of the quartet. M is particularly fragile ("Here I am again on the edge of darkness") and is a possible alter ego for the author (Ms. Kane committed suicide at the age of 26). The sense of despair is palpable and director Cheryl Faraone orchestrates the ensemble with firm hand allowing little relief from its unrelenting power (she beautifully choreographs a vocal fugue of confrontational yes and no's). We are left rather senseless and drained at its conclusion with little to comfort ourselves from the unforgiving blackness.
Neil Bell's Somewhere in the Pacific is also in a war zone but at least this time the enemy is a bit more concrete. Set during the Pacific campaign of World War II on a battleship awaiting orders to move out, the young Navy Seabees are edgy, bored and unnerved by the unseen Japanese presence lurking in the water. They are
questioning their own intentions and the motives of their superiors. The environment
is heightened by a homoeroticism (which at times turns violent) between the men and a frustrated sailor Billy (Michael Wrynn Doyle) who is openly sexual towards his shipmates. A second plotline deals with the ships captain Albers (Malcolm Madera) who is demented with grief over the death of his son (in a land maneuver). Bell's interest in exploring the issues of man love in wartime (both the platonic and sexual) never quite gels especially as the increasingly unhinged Albers pushes the character into a Captain Queeg caricature. Yet, the play allows the talented PTP ensemble to shine. In addition to the sensitive Mr. Doyle, MacLeod Andrews as Duane the good ole Southern boy slowly losing his sanity is a standout. However, the dim moonlight environment in the climactic scene by Laura J. Eckelman is somewhat detrimental to the play's enjoyment.
Scenes from an Execution is the showpiece of the Potomac Theater Project's summer residency and it's another invitation for New York audiences to examine Howard Barker's canon. Like last season's No End of Blame (also directed by Richard Romagnoli), Barker's play explores the theme of artistic integrity and the need (if any) to capitulate to a higher order. In the case of No End of Blame it was the government while in Scenes from an Execution it is a wealthy patron, the Doge of Venice.
Sixteenth century Venetian painter Galactia (a fictional character although loosely based on the real life Roman painter Artemisia Gentileschi) is commissioned to paint the celebrated Battle of Lepanto as a public art piece. The picture is to commemorate the decisive naval victory of the Holy Roman Empire over the
Ottoman expansion. After several drafts, the final product comes in at 660 square feet and littered with carnage and gore. "Someone needs to speak for the dead" proclaims Galactia. The Doge is not amused.
It's not that Galactia (Jan Maxwell) hasn't been warned. Both her daughters pleaded with their mother to tone down the work. Her effete lover Carpeta (an extremely overwrought David Barlow) is a drab institutional painter who secretly hopes to gain Galactia's commission should she fail tiptoes around the work's shocking qualities. The Doge (the excellent Alex Draper) sees art in the most simplistic terms (pro establishment/anti-establishment) and favors the former while his mistress art critic Gina Rivera (a wryly sardonic Patricia Buckley) tries to steer Galactia to a less confrontational form. The religious hierarchy is finally brought in the form of Cardinal Ostensible (a subtly threatening Timothy Deenihan) to weigh in on this "radical woman".
Having pushed the Venetian politicos and Vatican clergy to the limit, Galactia is accused of treason and imprisoned (her confinement scenes are imaginatively staged in a blackout thus driving Galactia mad from lack of light). Gradually, Galactia "repents" enough to be released yet still remains artistically intractable and personally unpleasant when viewing Carpeta's 'remake' of her work.
In his classical Brechtian fashion, Barker keeps us at a distance from the characters lest the play become more about the emotional than the philosophical. He has a docent (Allison Corke) comment on the action and she gives art history tips throughout. Romagnoli's direction contains many elegant compositions while buttressing Barker's intentions and Laura J. Eckelman's lighting effectively shadows the principals (it's her best work of the three shows). Yet despite the impassiveness of the production, nothing can keep us getting involved with the emotional powerhouse of Jan Maxwell's performance as Galactia. Not afraid to be arrogant, shrewish, egotistical or offensive, Maxwell is never less than riveting. Even when she works everyone's last nerve, she is the personification of the artist being true to her ideals. It is her performance that elevates Scenes from an Execution from being too harsh to enthralling.
