101. WOMEN OR NOTHING
If
you’re a movie lover you probably count some of the 16 movies of the Coen
brothers, Ethan and Joel, among your favorites. Ethan has also tried his hand
at playwriting, but to date he has focused on one-acts, and WOMEN OR NOTHING,
at the Atlantic Stage Company, is his first full-length play. Sorry to say, it
is not only not a BARTON FINK, BLOOD SIMPLE, FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, or NO
COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN; it is not even a THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE or THE
LADYKILLERS, among the few relative clinkers in the Coen oeuvre. Its mild
pleasures are transitory and disposable, and make you appreciate how difficult
it is to transfer screenwriting talent to the stage.
The basic premise on which this
dramedy is built is so implausible that you wonder at how the play could have gotten this far. Two highly educated, successful, and
attractive lesbians, living in a beautiful New York duplex with a spiral
staircase, want to have a child. They thereupon decide to trick a man whose
genes are likely to produce a terrific offspring into having sex with one of
them, Laura (Susan Pourfar), a 40-year-old, internationally famous, classical
pianist. Laura, a short-haired brunette, who calls herself a “gold star
lesbian” because she’s never had sex with a man, is hesitant, but her lover,
Gretchen, a longhaired, blonde beauty unable to conceive, is so into the idea that she finds every
conceivable argument as to why having a baby by artificial insemination is a horrible
one. The idea of adoption is given short shrift. The playwright appears so
taken with the contrivance of a lesbian seducing a straight guy that all
rational thought about the implications are dismissed for one flimsy reason or
another.
A plan is concocted whereby Chuck (Robert Beitzel), a
handsome lawyer in Gretchen’s office, divorced but with a 12-year-old daughter
Gretchen has met and admired, will be invited to the women’s apartment to have
dinner with Gretchen, but learn on his arrival that she’s been detained and
that Laura, a “neighbor,” has been recruited to occupy his time.
This, the conspirators are convinced, will allow Laura to get him in the sack. An
important point is that he’s moving to Florida (which is the tired butt of some
unnecessary jibes); therefore, Gretchen argues, he’ll be out of the picture and
won’t even know he’s the father of the baby that’s sure to result from this
one-night fling.
Despite all the ethical issues that
get so casually shredded in the women’s plan, not to mention Laura’s agreeing
to something that should be sexually revolting to her, we have a situation
where Chuck must not only succumb to Laura’s charms but must be able in only one shot
(which turns out to be a doubleheader) to make Laura preggers!! Of course, Chuck arrives, spends the evening chatting pleasantly
with Laura about a host of issues, and falls into the trap. In order to follow this impossible scenario, Chuck never asks why they are having sex in an apartment Laura says she doesn't live in. Nor does he raise the issue of using protection. The next morning,
Laura’s glamorous but eccentric mother, Dorene, played by the marvelous Deborah
Rush, embarrasses Laura with a surprise visit, figures out (more or
less) the shenanigans that are underway, offers her comically off-the-wall
yet perceptive commentary, and departs. Before she goes, however, she has a one-on-one with Chuck, during which he delivers the plot twist (a good example of dramatic
irony) that—unbeknownst to the women—subverts the basis for the entire
conspiracy. Chuck, too, will have his major moment of discovery before he takes
his leave, but since the play begins on one day and ends on the next, we never
learn if Chuck’s sperm hooked up with Laura’s egg.
Described like this, there seems to
be a lot of plot in WOMEN OR NOTHING, but, actually, the plot, for all its
plotting, is essentially an excuse for talk, especially in the long act 1,
scene 2, scene between Laura and Chuck in which they discuss various
things around a table. The principal blocking involves Laura’s using a shaker to make a
mixed drink, using overstated masturbatory
(male version, if you please) movements; this is a rather cheap laugh director David
Cromer aims for at least three times. Putting Laura and Chuck together is necessary so that
Mr. Coen can establish the relationship that will bring the pair together for
their bedroom escapade; this pumps up the stage air with chatter that, while
momentarily interesting, concerns Laura and Chuck's personal attitudes toward several
subjects (therapy, self-respect, genes, being human, childrearing etc.) that, for the most part,
have little to do with the forward movement of the play.
The need to fill these folks’ mouths
with words, words, words is especially noticeable in the case of Dorene. Here we have an
obviously sophisticated woman who, for no apparent reason other than to give
her something hopefully fascinating to say, begins to talk openly and without
shame in front of her daughter about all the men she cheated with. As Dorene
has never shared this information during Laura’s 40 years on earth, it comes as
a complete surprise to her astonished daughter, but this is immaterial; it
occupies time, gets a few laughs (as when she casually announces that Laura’s
math tutor “stuck his finger in my anus”), and, since one of the lovers
mentioned is Jack Kerouac, tints the proceedings with a frisson of historicity,
regardless of it being completely fictional.
Everything transpires in Michele
Spadaro’s attractive set, with the side walls lined with shelves bearing objets
d’art and books; a tastefully modern dining table and chairs are at stage left
and a living room arrangement at right (with, remarkably, the couch up against
the side wall—as in most apartments—and not facing the audience in the room’s
middle, as per the stage convention). The rear wall, with two windows showing in
forced perspective the apartment house across the way (a rather unappealing
view for so successful an artist as Laura), carries a number of paintings
selected to show Laura and Gretchen’s tastes; these are deliberately undermined
when Gretchen, hoping to get Chuck in the mood, replaces a
painting of a pianist with one of a nude. The set’s most unusual element is a
second floor, shown via a partial ceiling over the living room area, with a
spiral staircase upstage right leading to it. We can see a piano there, but
Laura never goes up to play it. A
lot of money seems to have been spent for a useless reminder of Laura’s
profession.
Both Ms. Feiffer nor Ms. Pourfar
are competent pros but they don’t bring much charm to their roles. Ms. Pourfar is saddled with a character who refers to herself as being "insufferable," so she has a couple of strikes against her from the get-go.
Mr. Beitzel is a believable Chuck, a
nice guy who wonders if his awareness of his own niceness is somehow not so nice;
he also offers another set of eye-popping abs and pecs to the growing list of New
York actors who must be making it de rigueur to add weight lifting to the their
résumés. The takeaway memory from WOMEN OR NOTHING is Ms. Rush’s
Dorene; with her perfectly coiffed blonde bob, pale white, still-tight skin,
and stylish gray dress and pearls complementing a dry as a martini comic performance, managing
with perfect aplomb to say absolutely ridiculous things without losing her dignity.
While the scene and her dialogue seem overly contrived to gather chortles by
their unexpected contrast with the figure of gentility her appearance creates,
they are the single most enjoyable part of the performance.
As the subject matter might imply, words
like sperm and semen get plenty of play time, and inspire ribald (but only
mildly amusing) quips as when Laura imagines that the answer to a request for the manly fluid would be,
“Will you be having it inside or all over your face?” This kind of humor seems
out of place in the play’s world, and hints at a cynical attempt at laughter at
any price.
One of the play’s themes is that
life can’t be controlled and that things will take their own course. You can ponder that while deciding if this play is worth a visit.
