Review
American Sligo
Rattlestick Theater
October 7, 2007
VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Prolific Adam Rapp has become something of a master at depicting dysfunction. Novelist, filmmaker and Obie award-winning writer/director Rapp has made his career depicting the lives of people living on the edge, people about to slide through the cracks. His comic genius makes us care about them even when they are truly repulsive Davis in Red Light Winter or Victor in American Sligo.
The major flaw in his prodigious output is his rather slack approach to narrative drive; his tendency to throw plotline to the wind in lieu of character infatuation. It's telling that the one time he harnessed his abilities to tell a complete story, the work was short listed for a Pulitzer Prize Red Light Winter. Yet despite this penchant, his ferocious talent is always evident
| Top, left to right: Michael Chernus and Paul Sparks
Bottom, left to right: Marylouise Burke and Guy Boyd |
His latest drama, American Sligo is a testament to above statement. At 100 minutes with no intermission, the play is basically without plot; a character study which could be subtitled 'Meet the Sligos'. The patriarch, Art Sligo (Guy Boyd), is about to retire from his career as a professional wrestler. His sister-in-law, Bobbie (Marylouise Burke), the ditsy matron of the house (replacing Art's dead wife) is preparing a celebratory dinner. In attendance is Bobby Bibby (Matthew Stadelmann) who has won a contest to be with "Crazy Train" Sligo for his last bout. Art's sons, the deadbeat Kyle (Michael Chernus) and the sociopath Victor (the charismatic Paul Sparks) reluctantly join the "festivities".
Sitting at the dining room table in his red and black leotard (later putting on a black mullet fright wig), Art presides over the dinner like a solemn patriarch (as the dinner wildly progresses, he actually comes across as the most sane member of the household). Bobbie prattles on about Art's career and more seriously her dead sister (an empty place is left at the table for her memory garnished with lilies and a picture of the Virgin Mary). Kyle and Victor go at each other with typical sibling anger each blaming Art for their misspent lives. Bobby Biddy is appropriately awed and unnerved by the heightened dysfunction.
Rapp scores some points for his insights into the eternal father/son conflict and captures the sadness underlying the chaos and disarray of the Sligo household. The play closes with a violent incident that rings false and feels tacked on for shock effect. In any event, it is the actors who carry the day. All the actors are uniformly good with Marylouise Burke particularly hilarious as Bobbie who provides a comic reprieve from the domestic war zone. Paul Sparks is a master at imploding violence and is a vicious counterpoint to Burke's dizziness. Matthew Stadelmann captures perfectly Bobby Biddy's combination of fawning hero worship and utter panic. While not attaining the majesty of O'Neill's Tyrones, Rapp is quite content to dramatize the Sligo's existence with Leo Tolstoy's famous dictum, "All families are unhappy in their own way".
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