The American Plan
Richard Greenberg's written a fascinating character; Lili's an Ophelia who didn't commit suicide. Possibly influenced by her German-Jewish family's experiences during WWII, she projects the Holocaust onto the world (she's convinced her mother murdered her father, for example). Lili's cried "wolf" so many times she could utter the truth unvarnished and you'd only hear a howl. In an irony so broad it becomes predictable, Lili's right. Things aren't what they seem. Her domineering mother's two-, and possibly even three-faced; her beau, Nick, could be just a gold digger after her inheritance. Like most illusion-versus-reality dramas, the play works best when the positives and negatives balance. But it also suffers from a domino effect: once you realize that what you see's an illusion you can anticipate that those to come will bring disillusionment as well, and Act Two unfolds as expected, its fatalistic payoff lacking the punch of the first act's strong setup. As Lili, Kate Arrington handles the role's emotional non sequiturs and leaps of language (she even references Ophelia, at one point, when drawn to the lakeshore of Wilson Chin's appealing, albeit Astroturfed set). Patrick Zeller, Michael Kirby, and Sharon Hope do capable work, but Lili's overbearing, elitist mother Eva gets lost in Sandra Shipley's thick German-Jewish accent and programmed affectations. She's a Tyrant, capital T, and too strident, even in her calmer scenes. We watch the reality of imitative acting rather than the illusion of performance.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, March 30, 2008
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Tuesdays, 7pm |
| Wednesdays, 7pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |