102 / Performance Review 102 / Performance Review

In much of the publicity material generated by the Denver Center Theatre Company regarding this play, the term "magic realism" was used to describe the style of the play and the production. Related to the style used by South American au- thors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the term seems misused here, and as misappropriate as calling any black-and-white movie film noir. Al- though born in Puerto Rico, Rivera's play seems closer theatrically to the world of Ionesco than to that of Marquez.

Part of the difficulty in this production was the over-production which is characteristic of the Den- ver Center Theatre Company's work. An unneces- sarily complex set was so busy with painted graffiti and hidden faces, that it was a constant distraction from the action. The staging by Melia Bensussen seemed hampered by the lack of focus allowed by the theatrical space. The actors, however, gave a hint of the potential power and poetry in the script, which might be realized in a simpler and more effectively conceived production.

As Marisol, Clea Rivera embodied the vulner- ability and child-like confusion of the role. Al- though none of the characters in the play is written with depth or complexity, Rivera's Marisol pro- vided a throughline for the play's picaresque epi- sodes. It was David Adkins, however, as Lenny, the disturbed brother of Marisol's friend June, who provided the show's heart and soul. Frightening, moving and funny, Adkins gave a performance that culminated in his simulation of giving birth, which seemed to transform instantly from comic pantomime to tragic reality.

Touching on issues of environmental, moral, social, and political decay in contemporary society, Rivera's play is ultimately about too many things to focus persuasively on any. He has said that "one of the roles of the artist is to bear witness to our time." In this play, however, he seems to bear witness to so many things, that it is difficult for the audience to see through the graffiti strewn land- scape to the individuals within. Rivera's writing, however, is fueled by both power and poetry, and if in this play he does not succeed in convincing us of an impending battle of angels, he does convince us of his potential as a major theatrical voice of the future. Whether in a further revision of this play, or in works to come, Marisol demonstrates that there may be room for other angels in America.

JOEL G. FINK University of Colorado, Boulder

In much of the publicity material generated by the Denver Center Theatre Company regarding this play, the term "magic realism" was used to describe the style of the play and the production. Related to the style used by South American au- thors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the term seems misused here, and as misappropriate as calling any black-and-white movie film noir. Al- though born in Puerto Rico, Rivera's play seems closer theatrically to the world of Ionesco than to that of Marquez.

Part of the difficulty in this production was the over-production which is characteristic of the Den- ver Center Theatre Company's work. An unneces- sarily complex set was so busy with painted graffiti and hidden faces, that it was a constant distraction from the action. The staging by Melia Bensussen seemed hampered by the lack of focus allowed by the theatrical space. The actors, however, gave a hint of the potential power and poetry in the script, which might be realized in a simpler and more effectively conceived production.

As Marisol, Clea Rivera embodied the vulner- ability and child-like confusion of the role. Al- though none of the characters in the play is written with depth or complexity, Rivera's Marisol pro- vided a throughline for the play's picaresque epi- sodes. It was David Adkins, however, as Lenny, the disturbed brother of Marisol's friend June, who provided the show's heart and soul. Frightening, moving and funny, Adkins gave a performance that culminated in his simulation of giving birth, which seemed to transform instantly from comic pantomime to tragic reality.

Touching on issues of environmental, moral, social, and political decay in contemporary society, Rivera's play is ultimately about too many things to focus persuasively on any. He has said that "one of the roles of the artist is to bear witness to our time." In this play, however, he seems to bear witness to so many things, that it is difficult for the audience to see through the graffiti strewn land- scape to the individuals within. Rivera's writing, however, is fueled by both power and poetry, and if in this play he does not succeed in convincing us of an impending battle of angels, he does convince us of his potential as a major theatrical voice of the future. Whether in a further revision of this play, or in works to come, Marisol demonstrates that there may be room for other angels in America.

JOEL G. FINK University of Colorado, Boulder

LUST AND COMFORT. By Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, and James Neale-Kennerly. Pro- duced in association with Split Britches, New York, and Gay Sweatshop, London. La Mama, New York. 12 May 1995.

Lust and Comfort, performed by Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, may be this duo's most self-referen- tial play to date. Drawing on Pinter's screenplay for Losey's film The Servant, Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, and Genet's play The Maids, the company has borrowed plotlines and charac- ters from this material in order to create their own tale of obsession, dependency, desire, and control.

The action is structured as a play within a play within a play. In the outermost frame, Lust and Comfort is about an American scriptwriter, Tony, who moves to London in 1956 to complete his screenplay about an American actress living in London as a man. Butch lesbian Peggy Shaw plays Tony, and her conflation with the screenplay's male impersonator embodies the butch lesbian appropriation of male appearances and manner- isms, blurring the boundaries between screenplay, play, and players. Lois Weaver's role in this first section is that of Tony's "manservant," Barrett. Weaver, who usually performs the femme in this couple, appears in full butch garb as she defers to Shaw's Tony. Gender constructs are performed and destabilized by these performers as their butch and femme identifications become less and less fixed.

Radical interruption of narrative is one means by which Shaw and Weaver destabilize fixed identity. Weaver, as Barrett, flips out of character to say, "I hate this game!" to which Shaw replies, "No you don't, you love this game." The "game" here refers to role-play, for which one set of roles (and rules) is that of master and servant, both men. There are breaks in this script that signal the performers' desire to posit this gender-play as illusion: when Weaver's Barrett suggests the addition of a woman to the script, Shaw's Tony retorts, "There will be no women in this house! Besides me, and you."

The second story, which is layered inside the Tony/Barrett dialogue, is Tony's screenplay. Weaver discovers this partial script in Shaw's type- writer and reads it aloud, interrupting it to say, "I'm not happy with this game; let's make a new one!" Ignoring Weaver's demand, Shaw's Tony continues to write his script, typing verbatim a dialogue he has spoken earlier with Barrett. This "real" dialogue is itself interrupted in the retelling by Tony's fantasy of what should have been said.

LUST AND COMFORT. By Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, and James Neale-Kennerly. Pro- duced in association with Split Britches, New York, and Gay Sweatshop, London. La Mama, New York. 12 May 1995.

Lust and Comfort, performed by Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, may be this duo's most self-referen- tial play to date. Drawing on Pinter's screenplay for Losey's film The Servant, Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, and Genet's play The Maids, the company has borrowed plotlines and charac- ters from this material in order to create their own tale of obsession, dependency, desire, and control.

The action is structured as a play within a play within a play. In the outermost frame, Lust and Comfort is about an American scriptwriter, Tony, who moves to London in 1956 to complete his screenplay about an American actress living in London as a man. Butch lesbian Peggy Shaw plays Tony, and her conflation with the screenplay's male impersonator embodies the butch lesbian appropriation of male appearances and manner- isms, blurring the boundaries between screenplay, play, and players. Lois Weaver's role in this first section is that of Tony's "manservant," Barrett. Weaver, who usually performs the femme in this couple, appears in full butch garb as she defers to Shaw's Tony. Gender constructs are performed and destabilized by these performers as their butch and femme identifications become less and less fixed.

Radical interruption of narrative is one means by which Shaw and Weaver destabilize fixed identity. Weaver, as Barrett, flips out of character to say, "I hate this game!" to which Shaw replies, "No you don't, you love this game." The "game" here refers to role-play, for which one set of roles (and rules) is that of master and servant, both men. There are breaks in this script that signal the performers' desire to posit this gender-play as illusion: when Weaver's Barrett suggests the addition of a woman to the script, Shaw's Tony retorts, "There will be no women in this house! Besides me, and you."

The second story, which is layered inside the Tony/Barrett dialogue, is Tony's screenplay. Weaver discovers this partial script in Shaw's type- writer and reads it aloud, interrupting it to say, "I'm not happy with this game; let's make a new one!" Ignoring Weaver's demand, Shaw's Tony continues to write his script, typing verbatim a dialogue he has spoken earlier with Barrett. This "real" dialogue is itself interrupted in the retelling by Tony's fantasy of what should have been said.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW / 103

Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver in Lust and Comfort, by Shaw, Weaver and James Neale-Kennerly, at La MaMa, E.T.C., New York. Photo: Eva Weiss.

All scripts are hereby subject to interruption as screenplay merges with stage dialogue.

"What next?" asks Weaver, referring to the stage action. Her character Barrett is stuck in a halted plotline, wanting to change the game. He is trans- formed into the ultra-femme Karin, a red-wigged Berlin Maid in g-string purple panties, high heels, and a frilly white apron. In her new persona, Weaver flounces around the stage, bare breasts and buttocks bouncing. She has become a mock pin-up girl, a screenplay character scheming to seduce Shaw's Tony.

Shaw calls a halt to Weaver's femme role-play. She again interrupts traditional narrative structure, making a bold move against the phallic implica- tions of plots building to a single climax. This particular interruption makes room for the third, most interior story of the play. This central frame is the story of Shaw and Weaver's fifteen-year rela- tionship both as lovers and artistic collaborators. As this story unfolds, we begin to better under- stand the previous two tales' commentary on role- play, interdependency, complacency, and the abuse of power in long-term relationships.

104 / Performance Review 104 / Performance Review

This section begins with a cha-cha, a sensual duet danced by the couple throughout which Shaw's face breaks into inadvertent smiles as she spins and dips her lover. When the music ends, Weaver demands that Shaw strip as she herself retires behind a translucent screen to change. Shaw removes her butch apparel to reveal a red lace and satin nightie. Her body, which has previously been read as a male figure, now displays the femme. Weaver is a voyeur behind the screen, which is painted to resemble marble. The translucence of this "marble" screen suggests a parallel to the irony of Shaw and Weaver's long-distance relationship and to relationships in general: the solid and stable appearance of love which is more accurately a filtered image-love, like identity, is perhaps a continuous shifting of appearances. As Weaver folds the screen, Shaw asks, "Where are the walls?" Weaver responds, "Gone, tumbled down... Start again."

The term "play" in Lust and Comfort is used to refer to games, role-switches, multiplot scripts, and theatrical artifice. Weaver's constant demand to change the game is a call not only for new scripts and new role-plays, but also for new definitions of desire. It is not just a fifteen-year relationship that must keep changing in this play, but the whole concept of romantic love. As a lesbian couple on and offstage, Shaw and Weaver have always per- formed desire in ways that question the subject/ object split inherent in traditional heterosexual representations of romance. Constantly popping in and out of roles, scripts, and costumes allows these performers to achieve a shifting subjectivity, one which may not ever sit still long enough to be categorized as one thing or another. Such self- conscious identifications and role-playing have given Weaver and Shaw room to create a female subjectivity that subverts spectatorial expectations and reconceptualizes desire itself.

TELORY WILLIAMSON New York University

THE ACCIDENT. By Carol K. Mack. Ameri- can Repertory Theatre, Cambridge. 3 May 1995.

Carol K. Mack's metatheatrical brain-teaser- part Hitchcock, part Calvino-begins with the char- acter of Bessie (played by Natacha Roi) onstage, barefoot, in a faded blue dress, looking around as if she does not know where she is. She is in a

This section begins with a cha-cha, a sensual duet danced by the couple throughout which Shaw's face breaks into inadvertent smiles as she spins and dips her lover. When the music ends, Weaver demands that Shaw strip as she herself retires behind a translucent screen to change. Shaw removes her butch apparel to reveal a red lace and satin nightie. Her body, which has previously been read as a male figure, now displays the femme. Weaver is a voyeur behind the screen, which is painted to resemble marble. The translucence of this "marble" screen suggests a parallel to the irony of Shaw and Weaver's long-distance relationship and to relationships in general: the solid and stable appearance of love which is more accurately a filtered image-love, like identity, is perhaps a continuous shifting of appearances. As Weaver folds the screen, Shaw asks, "Where are the walls?" Weaver responds, "Gone, tumbled down... Start again."

The term "play" in Lust and Comfort is used to refer to games, role-switches, multiplot scripts, and theatrical artifice. Weaver's constant demand to change the game is a call not only for new scripts and new role-plays, but also for new definitions of desire. It is not just a fifteen-year relationship that must keep changing in this play, but the whole concept of romantic love. As a lesbian couple on and offstage, Shaw and Weaver have always per- formed desire in ways that question the subject/ object split inherent in traditional heterosexual representations of romance. Constantly popping in and out of roles, scripts, and costumes allows these performers to achieve a shifting subjectivity, one which may not ever sit still long enough to be categorized as one thing or another. Such self- conscious identifications and role-playing have given Weaver and Shaw room to create a female subjectivity that subverts spectatorial expectations and reconceptualizes desire itself.

TELORY WILLIAMSON New York University

THE ACCIDENT. By Carol K. Mack. Ameri- can Repertory Theatre, Cambridge. 3 May 1995.

Carol K. Mack's metatheatrical brain-teaser- part Hitchcock, part Calvino-begins with the char- acter of Bessie (played by Natacha Roi) onstage, barefoot, in a faded blue dress, looking around as if she does not know where she is. She is in a

farmhouse kitchen, although Allison Koturbash's set provides only a raw open space with a long, narrow table centerstage flanked by two chairs. The floor is covered with canvas, painted white, and the rear wall is white also, painted to a height of eight or nine feet, making the set something of an abstract white box (an image later affirmed by the play's most mischievous prop). "Look famil- iar?" asks Bessie's husband, John (Jack Willis).

The ensuing action allows us to know that Bessie is an amnesiac, that she was hurt in an accident, that this is the day of her release from the hospital, that she has a son named Ben (Nat DeWolf), and so on. John seems a bit belligerent as he re-orients Bessie to her household duties. When he puts his arms around his wife and son in a family embrace, he clasps them hard and tight, as if they might escape otherwise.

Over the next few scenes, Bessie examines every- day objects that might trigger her memory-a fry- ing pan, a white shirt-and as she does, a mystery brews. Each time her popcor-munching sister-in- law Doreen (Caroline Hall) retells the story of her auto accident, the details change slightly. When Bessie wonders out loud why her dress does not fit, Doreen insists, "You've got to accept things the way you find them." Suspicions begin to mount that Bessie is the victim of a bizarre kidnapping scheme, and when a voice inside her mumbles fragments of French, we know she has a previous identity which is being kept from her.

No sooner do we settle in for a vintage psycho- logical thriller than the play lurches into a different dimension. Bessie is sitting in a chair on the apron (explicitly outside the proscenium arch) opposite a chain-smoking psychologist named Dr. Greyson. Bessie is now "Blanche," an unidentified patient in a mental hospital who suffers from a "psychoge- netic amnesia" brought on by a deeply repressed traumatic event. Blanche and Dr. Greyson go over her recurring dream of being a farm wife caught in a kitchen full of broken things. What was reality for us is now a fiction. A new mystery presents itself.

The remainder of the play bounces back and forth between these two realms of being, challeng- ing the viewer to decide between their competing claims to the truth. Back at the farm, Bessie's search for answers centers on the shed out back, repre- sented onstage by an old wooden door leaning oddly against the rear wall. John has given her a key to the shed and forbidden her to enter. But the door, now and again eerily isolated by John Ambrosone's lighting, beckons. At one point, Bessie approaches the door and then, as Blanche, enters a moment later to the doctor, her arms bloody to the

farmhouse kitchen, although Allison Koturbash's set provides only a raw open space with a long, narrow table centerstage flanked by two chairs. The floor is covered with canvas, painted white, and the rear wall is white also, painted to a height of eight or nine feet, making the set something of an abstract white box (an image later affirmed by the play's most mischievous prop). "Look famil- iar?" asks Bessie's husband, John (Jack Willis).

The ensuing action allows us to know that Bessie is an amnesiac, that she was hurt in an accident, that this is the day of her release from the hospital, that she has a son named Ben (Nat DeWolf), and so on. John seems a bit belligerent as he re-orients Bessie to her household duties. When he puts his arms around his wife and son in a family embrace, he clasps them hard and tight, as if they might escape otherwise.

Over the next few scenes, Bessie examines every- day objects that might trigger her memory-a fry- ing pan, a white shirt-and as she does, a mystery brews. Each time her popcor-munching sister-in- law Doreen (Caroline Hall) retells the story of her auto accident, the details change slightly. When Bessie wonders out loud why her dress does not fit, Doreen insists, "You've got to accept things the way you find them." Suspicions begin to mount that Bessie is the victim of a bizarre kidnapping scheme, and when a voice inside her mumbles fragments of French, we know she has a previous identity which is being kept from her.

No sooner do we settle in for a vintage psycho- logical thriller than the play lurches into a different dimension. Bessie is sitting in a chair on the apron (explicitly outside the proscenium arch) opposite a chain-smoking psychologist named Dr. Greyson. Bessie is now "Blanche," an unidentified patient in a mental hospital who suffers from a "psychoge- netic amnesia" brought on by a deeply repressed traumatic event. Blanche and Dr. Greyson go over her recurring dream of being a farm wife caught in a kitchen full of broken things. What was reality for us is now a fiction. A new mystery presents itself.

The remainder of the play bounces back and forth between these two realms of being, challeng- ing the viewer to decide between their competing claims to the truth. Back at the farm, Bessie's search for answers centers on the shed out back, repre- sented onstage by an old wooden door leaning oddly against the rear wall. John has given her a key to the shed and forbidden her to enter. But the door, now and again eerily isolated by John Ambrosone's lighting, beckons. At one point, Bessie approaches the door and then, as Blanche, enters a moment later to the doctor, her arms bloody to the