"Plumbing the Depths"
THE FEAST,
Cory Finley’s compact, offbeat, psychological thriller in the Flea’s tiny
downstairs venue, receives well calibrated performances from its three actors under Courtney Ulrich's direction. The piece, which runs slightly under an hour,
moves quickly, its dialogue is clipped and natural-sounding, and the characters,
while two-dimensional, are sufficiently lifelike for its purposes. However, when
it ends you may ask yourself Peggy Lee’s immortal question, “Is that all there
is?”
While
this isn’t what anyone would call a dramatic feast, neither is it quite a
famine; it has sufficient meat on its bones to keep audiences chewing during most
of its brief duration. Set in a black-painted space designed by Andrew Diaz to
serve as an apartment, a therapist’s office, and a street outside a bar, it
revolves around Matt (Ivan Dolido), a young painter (the gallery, not the house
kind, we’re told) who lives with Anna (Kristin Friedlander), a management consultant.
Something’s wrong with their toilet, which is making very odd noises, so a
plumber (Donaldo Prescod), saying Anna sent him, shows up to take a look. He
tells Matt that the sound coming from the pipes is like “a man, tied up down
there. Water streaming over his mouth.” Something surreal’s going on, and,
despite the quiet naturalism of the acting, when the plumber suggests that Matt
go down into the toilet to see for himself what’s going on, we realize we’re on
the slippery border between reality and fantasy. Later, Matt will deny to Anna
that the plumber even came.
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| Ivan Dolido, Kristin Friedlander. Photo: Bjorn Bolinder. |
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| Ivan Dolido. Photo: Bjorn Bolinder. |
After this,
Anna tells Matt about a coworker with whom she’s slept, to which Matt responds
with a bizarre penis-envy rant; Matt produces a brilliant painting of his
underground feast that his agent, Jeff (again, Mr. Prescod), raves over, until
there’s yet another reality slippage concerning the painting’s subject; Matt, identifying
himself only as a plumber, directly confronts Anna’s coworker/lover, Connor (Mr.
Prescod once more), outside a bar; and Matt and Anna’s relationship is
resolved.
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| Ivan Bolinder. Photo: Bjorn Bolinder. |
As I write this, I
realize how silly it all sounds. Nevertheless, the actors, playing everything straight, are sufficiently nuanced to suck you
into their eerie little world; when we get to the scary concluding scenes, however, it’s so hard to see what's going on that the chilling climax is more or less flushed away.
A note: Productions at the Flea, especially those devoted to the Bats, the theatre’s resident acting company, often begin with a cast member making a brief speech of welcome to the audience, asking them to turn off their cellphones, and so on. This little custom can be a little distracting, especially when the actor, as here, must immediately switch from being our host to playing the leading role. Why not give the task to someone with a smaller role who doesn't appear until later in the play? Just askin’ . . .
A note: Productions at the Flea, especially those devoted to the Bats, the theatre’s resident acting company, often begin with a cast member making a brief speech of welcome to the audience, asking them to turn off their cellphones, and so on. This little custom can be a little distracting, especially when the actor, as here, must immediately switch from being our host to playing the leading role. Why not give the task to someone with a smaller role who doesn't appear until later in the play? Just askin’ . . .