"SNAKEBIT" at Profiles Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
What appears to be your average frustrated-actor-sells-out-to-Hollywood saga, materializes into a devastating and humorous exploration of personal choice and regret in David Marshall Grant’s "Snakebit." The contemporary L.A.-set tragicomedy, now enjoying an assured and bitingly hilarious staging directed by Sarah Franklin at Profiles Theatre, dares to raise questions of guilt and responsibility that transcend the usual diatribes against the film industry’s soulless grip on artists (a theme explored with great success in Robert Altman’s "The Player").
Instead, the playwright – also an actor with hefty Broadway credits, including Tony Kushner’s "Angels in America" -- gazes into both ends of his dramatic binoculars to examine the flaws and high points of two ideologies engulfing the two central characters.
Michael, a gay former ballet dancer, is embroiled in a traumatic battle to adopt an abused young girl he counsels in his current career as a social worker. A lot of his problems, including the recent ditching by his boyfriend for a younger guy, seem to have resulted from his staunch sense of giving, of sacrifice and moral obligation. He believes it is his duty to make a difference in the world, but this goal seems to leave him in constant misery.
On the flip side, we have his school friend Jonathan, a driven stage actor and star of an insipid action-adventure movie called "Brute Force III," in L.A. with his emotionally unhinged wife Jenifer to audition for yet another shoot ‘em up blockbuster. The seemingly self-absorbed Jonathan, while aware of his expendability in Hollywood, has a practical goal: to earn enough money so he and Jenifer (also an actress, whose on-stage panic attacks have pushed her into another career: a failing organic baking business) can lead a happier life and be able to get quality care for their little girl who is sick.
Grant, while appearing to favor the whole notion of social responsibility, does not tip the scales of his play in such an obvious direction. Nor is Jonathan a one-dimensional narcissistic joke. In addition to these men’s complex conundrums, the playwright touches on the ambiguous aspects of a relationship between a gay and a straight man who have been best friends since high school.
Plus, he introduces a plot complication (which is not as well integrated as the play’s central dichotomies) involving a brief tryst between Michael and Jenifer that raises the possibility of HIV transmission – shaky in some of its stereotypical gay implications. In addition, we meet the spacey but ulterior motive-harboring Gary – the new lover of Michael’s ex-lover.
The play begins at a low ebb, with Michael and Jenifer sharing their trials and tribulations, and referencing hackneyed ideas – from Michael’s ex-boyfriend’s "still blow-drying his hair" to Jenifer’s forgetting the "Flores por los muertos" line in "A Streetcar Named Desire." But the play and production gain momentum when the stakes get higher and the acerbic humor soars.
Darrell W. Cox, unafraid to navigate the suppressed complexities of Jonathan, enters with an air of cranky urgency. He immediately calls his agent on his cell phone and ignores his wife’s questions and Michael’s fragile demeanor. But he doesn’t stop at conceited oblivion. Slowly, Cox – in one of his more multidimensional portrayals on par with his daring work in Profiles’ "Some Voices" – reveals Jonathan to be an ordinary guy who’s exhausted from compromising his dreams and being made to feel guilty about his paltry career as a pretend-action hero.
Cox is a sadly stinging counterpart to Joe Jahraus’ overly sensitive Michael (a role to which Jahraus, while quietly engaging, can add more emotional layers) – a man embroiled in a love-hate relationship with the notion of guilt. Although he has a tendency to blame outside forces for his problems, Michael seeks out a fulfilling place in society. His connection to the girl he wishes to adopt remains the source of overwhelming inner peace and indescribably pained internal strife.
Jonathan and Michael – each an axis around which the play’s issues orbit – embark on an intensely critical ideological ping-pong match, which results in both men reevaluating their current place in their consciences and in the world at large. Jenifer (Sara Maddox in a sensitively textured and explosively tense performance) also is forced to reassess her own resentment and assumptions toward her husband’s ego-heavy distraction. At the same time, she must take a closer look at her dangerous and energy-consuming bouts of self-loathing.
One of this production’s unexpected highlights is a riotous supporting turn by Jeremy Trager as Gary (a loopy guy with suspicious motivations, quirky-elastic body language and a glaringly nerdy addiction to The Gap).
The cast’s expert timing and gentle build-ups toward big laughs and tragic revelations make "Snakebit" an emotionally non-manipulative or contrived experience. Even if audience members don’t leave pondering Grant’s astute probing of what it means to be a failure or what constitutes "normal" human behavior, they will have had a rousing good time – thanks to Franklin’s crisp and witty direction and the actors’ near-symphonic understanding of the short distance between humor and heartache.•
"Snakebit" has been extended through April 27 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway. Tickets: $15-$18. Call 773-549-1815 or log onto www.profilestheatre.org.
