"PURPLE HEART" at Steppenwolf Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
It doesn’t take long to realize – between the lead character’s alcoholic binges, chronic vomiting, a mysterious pregnancy and a strange visit from a one-armed soldier – that Bruce Norris’ twisted tragicomedy, "Purple Heart," has more to do with the notion of bruised love than medals awarded for heroism. And, even though the play is set during the Vietnam Conflict, the battle is one of grotesque and unbearable inner turmoil.
So the 1970s shag carpeting in the "Brady Bunch"-style ranch home where Carla – an angry young woman whose brutish husband was killed in action – lives, merely provides a trendy retro-setting, with the added bonus of implying an era of monumental social change. And Norris, whose play is receiving its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, appears to luxuriate in the eviscerating nature of love. His self-servingly sardonic writing style provokes, but it also wears thin – especially by the time we get to the problematic second act, which is drenched in bizarre and implausible dysfunction.
"Purple Heart" centers on Carla, who has hit rock bottom after the death of her husband (whom she grew to hate and is now fed up with all the social niceties that prance in the path of tragedy). She lives with her lonely, attention-grubbing son, Thor (a possible serial killer or terrorist in-the-making prone to crafting flame throwers, building booby traps and graphically fantasizing about how he would lure and kill a female schoolmate). Sharing their home is the prim and smilingly manipulative Grace, Carla’s mother-in-law, whose false concerns for Carla’s well being prompt irreparable self-destruction.
In the midst of this distressed household steps Purdy, a soldier with a prosthetic arm. He claims to be a friend of Carla’s deceased husband. Purdy is a creepily polite man, who rhapsodizes on the drawbacks of conscience and the quite truthful fact that "you can shape horse shit (i.e. the soul-numbing obligations that consume our lives) any way you want." He’s also obviously not an acquaintance of Carla’s husband. What unravels over the course of one late evening and early morning is a tale of rather contrived ugliness. Not that I’m seeking beauty or a redeeming outcome; it just feels like Norris has challenged himself to show "love" at its most reprehensible.
And he conveys this point through the forced – and well-ordered -- quirkiness of novelty gags (the most blatant being stuffed-animal snakes let out of a can); a brittle, suicidal protagonist; a clean-cut, one-armed, all-American soldier who may be a monstrous psycho; blood and barf; an obscenity-spewing adolescent boy thrilled with terrorizing his grandmother (who toggles between well-meaning old lady and sugar-coated Gestapo); and a beginning and ending clock-changing motif that literally reminds us that the time is out of joint.
Director Anna D. Shapiro accentuates these macabre oddities by blocking the production in angular, box-like segments. Daniel P. Ostling’s cube-like scenic design, which includes a glass-patio door framing a wooden fence and tree (enhanced by James F. Ingalls’ real-time-styled lighting), underscores this compartmentalizing of people and their seemingly delusional values.
Yet, although there are important messages pouring out of this unsettling play, "Purple Heart" feels rabid in a preciously fatalistic way. There’s a nihilistic thread running throughout the work that makes one question whether love and hate really are polar opposites. Norris’ dismantling of hypocritical obligation, like the neighbor "vultures" who bring Carla casseroles in Tupperware containers, rings true on many levels. But one is always aware that he is smirking at his own daring attacks on social mores. Norris also has a tendency to combine stingingly spare dialogue with lengthy and elliptical ruminations that tell more than is necessary.
The Steppenwolf production, however, feature a gutsy and volatile performance by Laurie Metcalf as the deadly embittered Carla. Rosemary Prinz as the more fascinating character of Grace elegantly knocks motherly compassion off its revered mantle via her cuttingly self-interested machinations. Christopher Evan Welch appropriately gives Purdy a wooden, uneasy quality; and Nathan Kiley subtly conveys Thor’s neediness cloaked in cold disregard for humanity.
But it’s Norris’ droll delight in pouring salt into love-induced wounds that makes "Purple Heart" difficult to stomach.•
"Purple Heart" runs through August 25 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted. Tickets: $35-$50. Call 312-335-1650 or log onto www.steppwolf.org.
