There are a lot of very nice things to be said about the Barnstormers' Intersession production of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, but a complaint is warranted first. The play is not nearly perverse enough, some might say, to earn a title that could suggest an epidemic of sexual degeneracy running rampant across the backdrop of America's third largest city.
It's not that Bernie (played by senior Oliver Roth) and Danny's (played by senior Ian White) frequent bare-chested jaunts around the Arellano stage are not appreciated. Danny's tumblings on the bed, conveniently positioned at center stage, with short-time girlfriend Deb (played by freshman Pam Hugi), also helped keep the performance this side of PG-13.
The aspect of the play most approximating the filth that was expected and hoped for comes in the form of Bernie's lengthy anecdotes (rich in pelvic thrusts and four-letter words) both of his own sexual misadventures and those presumably passed down through some venerable oral tradition.
Who could forget the tale of the king who redirected train tracks through the house of the lady with whom he was holding sexual congress? Spoiler: just at that particular moment, enthusiastically represented by Bernie's rolling around his desk amidst his own moaning of obscenities, clang clang clang, a train rolls through and obliterates the house. Choo choo. Mamet's play is strange and largely unsatisfying. Its billing as a play that "centers on the sex lives of two men and two women in 1976," is somewhat misleading. What we really have is a story of two men who talk about sex a great deal and the two women whose paths they cross surprisingly infrequently.
The action begins in a bar with Bernie telling Danny the wild story of last night and his time with a young woman who was probably 19 or 20, debatably a prostitute, and unquestionably had a knack for heating things up by dousing the bed in gasoline and sparking a Zippo.
This scene is followed by other tête-à-têtes at the bar. First, we have the introduction of Joan (played by sophomore Erika Rodriguez), a disillusioned elementary school teacher who spurns Bernie's creative advances.
Soon after, quirky Danny succeeds in impressing Deb, an artist who is also Joan's roommate, enough to agree to see him again. From here, Danny and Deb gradually develop a relationship, Danny being the strange but affectionate key to Deb's calm and nurturing keyhole. There is much tussling beneath the sheets.
They move in together, start fighting and eventually break up. The reason, it becomes clear, is that, despite their initial chemistry and sexual compatibility, there are ultimately barriers of communication between them that cannot be overcome.
This problem of communication extends to Bernie and Joan as well, and not only because their interaction is limited to that one scene in the bar. As the play goes on, Joan becomes fixated by the notion that human interaction is a puzzle without a realizable answer. She struggles to articulate the meaning and implications of sexual interaction in simple terms, as she must upon discovering her students playing "doctor."
Joan resents Danny for whisking away Deb, it seems, because she is unable to find meaning in romantic relationships.
Bernie, on the other hand, is extremely vocal. He has great confidence in his ideas, even when those ideas are insensitive or ludicrous (on the Equal Rights Amendment: "There are baby seals being clubbed on the North Pole and we're worrying about broads?").
Despite his macho demeanor, Bernie's sense of fulfillment over the course of the play remains as static as Joan's. He ends the play just as he begins it: single and drinking with Danny while making lascivious comments about the fairer sex.
Even with the play's focus on the impossibility of communication, the lack of interaction between characters, especially Bernie and Joan, is disappointing and feels like missed dramatic opportunity.
All such criticism aside, the performances of all four actors, as well as the direction, were extremely impressive and more than saved a play, which in lesser hands could easily have been underwhelming.
Roth's comedic delivery and suggestive pantomimes (as well as his ‘70s style mustache) had the crowd in near hysterics, as did White's ironically dry recitation and occasional interjection of strange sounds. Deb is in many ways an understated character, but Hugi struck a fine balance between Deb's compassionate nature and pride, and played especially well off of White in their numerous scenes together.
Most would say that Roth stole the show with his entertaining portrayal of Bernie but, in at least one opinion, Rodriguez matched him tit-for-tat with the intensity of Joan's monologues. The near manic frustration she exuded was as convincing a performance and, at times, as moving as any student acting here in recent memory.
All in all, though the material of the play itself was a little disappointing, the Barnstormers' production was highly enjoyable and skillfully performed.
