Christopher Durang's Why Torture is Wrong, And The People Who Love Them
New City Stage Company's 2011-2012 season began on December 10th at the Adrienne Theatre Main Stage with a Philadelphia premiere of Christopher Durang's satire Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, directed by Michael K. Brophy. The play is part of season called The Terror Within, a body of work that considers political and ethical questions posed a decade after 9/11. What does it mean to live in a world of terrorists?
More after the jump. |
Why Torture is Wrong is a fast-paced comedy/tragedy about America's ongoing "war on terror." A young woman, Felicity (played beautifully by Ginger Dayle, the founder and Producing Artistic Director of New City Stage) wakes up to a strange man, Zamir (perfectly cast Sam Henderson) - to discover that at a drunken evening at Hooters she married this would-be terrorist, or alcoholic or man on parole. Seeking comfort at her parents New Jersey home, we encounter her crazy mother Luella (played magnificently by Marcia Saunders) and her alleged butterfly raising Republican, Jane Fonda hating Father, Leonard (played by Paul L. Nolan). Durang doesn't stop there but pushes us to a dark place where our fears of the sociopath next door make us squirm in our seats.
The play deftly explores how political issues like terrorism and torture get played out in the private space of home. At one point, Luella puts down her needlepoint and retreats to the kitchen to make French toast: You can postpone angry exchanges until your stomach is nice and full. Leonard, who we learn is involved in a Shadow Government plot to overthrow terrorists - wants to rename French toast Freedom Toast. Head to the Adrienne if only to meet the "porn again" Revered Mike in a superb performance by Russ Widdall and Hidegarde, aka Scooby Doo, played by Sonja Robson, and The Voice, played by Ed Swidey. The acting and pacing of this production are spot-on. The sets, designed by S. Corey Palmer also deserve mention, as they are understated and effective.
 Durang, who currently co-chairs with Marsha Norman, the Playwriting Program at the Juillard School, has a large body of work which have received Tony nominations and Obie awards, including A History of the American Film, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, and Durang/Durang.
In an otherwise provocative two hours of theatre, the final scene seems to want to end on a lighter, sweeter, more hopeful note than the previous 90 minutes we've spent with these zany, lost, disturbed characters who "identify with bullies." In the final scene, Felicity returns to the scene of the crime at Hooters, in an effort to reverse time. This is part of the play's clever internal commentary about the theatre itself, linear time, and "unspeakable things that happen at night." Luella says: "I go to the theatre to learn what normal is." Durang's play asks us to consider what is normal is a post 9/11 world.
The play runs through January 8th.
Adrienne Theatre Main Stage
2030 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA
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