"QUAKE" at American Theater Company
BY LUCIA MAURO
Melanie Marnich’s "Quake" – receiving its Chicago premiere at American Theater Company – threatens to get swallowed up by its own ravenous metaphors. Employing a familiar journey motif of a young woman (Lucy), who travels across the country in search of "Big Love," the play envisions a dreary future for anyone intent on meeting a life partner. Lucy is propelled by "That Woman" – a quasi-symbolic figure – who is an astrophysicist-turned-serial killer.
That Woman, who murders all the un-perfect men in her life before settling into a surprisingly static marriage, provides an opportunity for Marnich to inject a lot of philosophical gobbledygook about fractal energy, supernovas and the laws of the universe into her script at the same time she tosses in sarcastic Quentin Tarantino-style brutality.
While any story about an individual’s eternal quest to find a soul mate has its timeless merit, "Quake" merely strings together a bunch of quirky images and ideas within a non-linear-for-non-linear sakes’ structure. And that’s all the more disappointing because Marnich demonstrates a knack for a sardonic-absurdist style best illustrated in a surreal scene at a gas station, where the attendant is oblivious to her multiple gunshot wounds. Had this sense of winking dark truth been carried throughout the play, "Quake" could make a bold statement for our increasingly jaded and deadpan times.
Instead, Lucy spends too much time hitting on a bunch of guys who are no more than glaring cartoon types: a hunter/woodsman; a triathlete; an intellectual; a cowboy; a hunky mechanic (who violates Lucy in a disturbingly gruesome and contrived way). A male New Age healer, specializing in "emergency aura adjustments," even makes a dated appearance. It’s clear that most of these men are delusional, selfish or have no interest in long-term commitment. But that’s only one side of the argument. The character of Lucy – a lost woman who enjoys tempting fate -- does little to convince us she’s a prime candidate for perfection.
More intriguing is That Woman, a brainy heroine with a psychotic streak who becomes idealized by other women as one who keeps moving so that her life never gets wedged into a boring rut. The only problem, of course, is that she happens to murder a string of men (albeit metaphorically) in the process. She also ends up in the sort of complacent marriage she abhors. The playwright, however, gets caught in the trap of assuming anyone who’s a suburban wife and mom is wasting away in a chronic and deadly malaise. In fact, most plays I see liken suburbia to ennui-laden hell. I have a feeling there are suburbanites out there not living an unfulfilled sham of an existence.
In addition, because Marnich chooses a half-realized fantastical framework, we’re left with no compelling context to grasp or the remotest connection to any of these consciously loopy and whiny characters. One of the most pointlessly weird scenes has Lucy and That Woman painlessly drilling holes into their heads before That Woman kills an unsuspecting guy by plunging the power tool into his noggin.
Director William Payne’s production emits a similar out-of-synch tone – one that belabors the journey theme yet contains a few haphazardly clever touches (like Lucy and the Jock’s bicycle sequence in which the road’s yellow strips move while the actors remain stationary). The play’s 80-minute running time feels like eons because, in an odd way, Lucy’s repetitive dream-like odyssey is rife with literal ideas. We certainly don’t need the extremes of a serial killer or quantum physics to get across the point that these women want more and that, in the end, they will have to make compromises.
Kate Buddeke, a forthright and fearless actress who is ideally suited to the role of That Woman, is left with few dimensions to unveil. But her focused presence adds its own fierce energy to a show that flails about in a strange sort of erratic smugness. As Lucy, Cheryl Graeff hits all the right notes, but her performance feels too cold and technically precise. We need to really feel Lucy’s unquenchable thirst for simultaneous thrills and self-satisfaction.
Editha Rosario hits her jagged-edged comedic mark in several multiple roles, especially the hardened gas-station attendant. The men (Andrew Micheli, Stef Tovar and Matthew Brumlow), all exceptional actors, are unfortunately wasted in a string of goofy cardboard-cutout parts.
B. Emil Boulos’ unadventurous set (a mound of secret faux-wood compartments and billowing parachutes) only adds to the play’s laboriously surreal familiarity.•
"Quake" runs through October 6 at American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron (at Lincoln). Tickets: $25-$30. Call 773-929-1031 or log onto www.atcweb.org.
