"WHEN THE WALLS HAVE EARS," Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. at Angel Island
BY LUCIA MAURO
David Hauptschein, a local playwright who explores the re-constructed nature of memory and fallibility of the subconscious within the average family environment, revels in paradox. His nightmarish – and typically unresolved – tragicomedies are linear enough to pull audiences in, but circulate within a realm of abstractions and uncertainties that cause us to question the very concept of truth.
His 1996 paean to media-infused violence of the imagination, "Trance," was one of his most poignant examples of plunging naturalism into the deep gorges of the brain’s alternative-universe state. In Hauptschein’s latest kitchen sink drama of the mind, "When the Walls Have Ears" – premiering at Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. – his off-kilter scaling of psycho-scapes appropriately captivates and confuses.
But his "Pulp Fiction" stylistics give this play a dated feel that verges on spoof. Rife with conspiracy theories, alien abductions and a drug deal gone bad, "When the Walls Have Ears" lacks the substantive mystery of "Trance" or the lush eerie abandon of another intriguing mind bender, "Lucid Dreamers."
In the real or unreal universe of the hard-edged Kratzki family, something sordid is going on a few days before Thanksgiving. Irma, the rum-and-Coke-swilling matriarch (and her visibly unhappy daughter Fanny), complain of graphic gastrointestinal ailments. Toilet flushing, not surprisingly, becomes an aural leitmotif. Fanny lives with the slick Dixon Reese, an obscure con man who borrowed Dirk Kratzki’s (the distracted father) van for some sort of deal involving one Angelo Del Rozo and a "dry-walling guy" named Ross.
Fanny’s thuggish but cowardly brother Harry is also involved in this shady transaction. Early on, we hear about a mentally unstable stalker, Vickie Weekers, whom Harry invited over for Thanksgiving – then withdrew the invitation. When Vickie appears to confront Fanny, Vickie reveals how Dixon drugged, raped and abducted her. Then she talks about having metal needles implanted in her thumb.
Gory tragedy follows, and the second act centers on the after-math of a freakish murder and the growing possibility that aliens are involved. On a more metaphoric plane, the play can be viewed as an overblown – and indescribable -- representation of a family’s disintegration, loosely tied to Thanksgiving: the ultimate family-gathering holiday.
But audiences will most likely leave with more questions than answers – certainly a good thing following a provocative theater experience. Yet, in this case, the questions may arise from sheer befuddlement. Why should we even care about these people and their meaningless lives? What new ideas does the work bring to the long-explored notion of repressed -- or rearranged – memory?
Right now, "Walls" feels like an "Outer Limits" episode – or the shell of a drama that can’t quite bridge the gap between the real and the imagined; between truth and invention.
Nevertheless, where the play feels slight and a bit hackneyed, the production – directed with tongue-in-cheek intensity by Julio Maria Martino – rings with a riotous brutality. Hauptschein undoubtedly writes juicy scenes for heavy-hitting actors. And "Walls" features some gritty operatic performances that, miraculously, never devolve into cartoons.
Marssie Mencotti as the matter-of-fact Irma unselfconsciously steals every scene she’s in. She’s brilliant nibbling on an olive or sipping her perpetual "rum and cola." And she can turn a ho-hum remark like, "When it rains, it rains -- don’t it?," into a snappy reflection on fate. Also outstanding are Wesley Walker’s whiny bully Harry – hilarious in his futile rabble rousing; and Meghan Maureen McDonough’s Vickie Weekers, a squeaky-clean Mary Tyler Moore-like space case with an unexpected violent streak. Corryn Cummins makes the crass Fanny likable.
One of the production’s most striking moments occurs at the climactic end of the first act in which the actors, Paul Hasara’s grungy "kitchen-sink" set design, Anne Marie Sedlock’s ominous lighting and Joseph Fosco’s cryptic sound collages converge and transport us to a mystical plane somewhere between science fiction and the indefinable workings of the human psyche.
Hauptschein, a concise and fearless writer, has forged a recognizable style framed around supernatural notions. But "Walls" lands in an odd sphere: at the same time it chooses to go over the top, it stops short of finding and securing its core idea – relying more on shock conventions than a meticulous and urgent structure. So the incompleteness I felt was not so much healthy non-resolution but a quick rush of adrenaline followed by mere emptiness.•
"When the Walls Have Ears" runs through March 30 at Mary- Arrchie Theatre Co.’s Angel Island Theater, 731 W. Sheridan Rd. Tickets: $10-$15. Call 773-871-0442.
