bash: latterday plays
Ion Theatre has revived its acclaimed production of Neil LaBute's trio of tales about unthinkable crimes. Neighbors would say of each speaker, "I had no idea. He/she just doesn't look the type." Their talk is disturbingly conversational; their deeds psychotic recreations of Greek tragedies. Mounting them in the more intimate Sixth at Penn space makes the monologues even starker. Movements are few. The elemental staging, under Glenn Paris's sensitive direction, aligns the plays with as much with Samuel Beckett as it does with the Greeks. Brian Mackey and Rachael VanWormer reprise their roles. Both excel. Mackey's garrulous speakers recall the title of Robert Scheer's Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death. And VanWormer (who won a Craig Noel Award in 2008 for the cold-hearted killer in Medea Redux) plays two women worlds apart temperamentally. So unlike, in fact, it's hard to imagine the same actor not only doing both but doing them back-to-back with almost no break.
Critic's Pick.
When
Ongoing until Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hours
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 4pm & 8pm |