“A Conundrum”
When a dramatic character is obsessed with an old but well-known
song and sings it to a fake tune that has nothing to do with the real one, you
know a play’s got trouble. That happens in Perp, The Barrow Group’s new play, although its
flaws become clear well before we hear the song.  |
| Tricia Alexandro. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Even without this musical stumble, Perp is an unconvincing, preachy, borderline surreal attempt to examine
issues of good and evil within the context of a man wrongfully convicted of
murder. Its attack on the criminal justice system has a certain satirical
quality but far from enough to warrant all the laughs when I attended; let’s
just chalk it up to chacun à son gout
(or a passel of friends). I chuckled once, more from duty than necessity.
TBG’s little stage, its brick walls exposed on either side,
is backed by Edward T. Morris’s set of what looks like a wall of rusty metal. With
the help of Marika Kent’s versatile lighting, revolving a central section on a
small turntable allows for swift changes of locale. We thus go from a police
interrogation room to a jail cell, a forest, a shack, a bar, and so on, as we witness
the fate of our chunky, hapless hero, Douglass (Ali Arkane).
 |
| Ali Arkane. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
A young jogger has been slain and raped in the woods,
Douglass has been arrested, and two callously snarky detectives, Harvey (Paul
Ben-Victor) and Jack (Tricia Alexandro, in a role originally written for a man)
are questioning him. Hungry for a conviction (another notch on their belts,
someone says), they banter with Douglass and each other, playing cruelly subtle
mind games as part of their practiced routine.
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| Paul Ben-Victor, Ali Arkane, Tricia Alexandro. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Their manipulations easily convince the likable dope that,
even though they know he’s innocent, he should confess, because his
incarceration will lead to finding the real killer, with Douglass celebrated as
a hero.
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| Ali Arkane, Javier Molina. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
We see in Douglass a goodhearted naïf, a poor schnook who sometimes
does and sometimes doesn’t seem to have a mental deficiency, and who no lawyer
would ever allow to be treated like this. But nary a legal representative is seen
nor heard of, the conviction is a fait accompli, and Douglass is thrown in the
clink. Despite a crime with widespread TV notoriety, the kind that would have
people protesting in the streets, no one seems to care about it.
 |
| Javier Molina. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Making it even more impossible to accept is that, for all
his sweet, childlike innocence, Douglass is actually very smart, at least when it
serves the playwright’s purposes. He has a scientific interest in insects and
earthworms, has no problem understanding words like the frequently used “conundrum,”
pronounces Schuylkill better than I, makes a sermon-like public speech on being
given an award, and consistently beats his eccentric, African-American cellmate,
Myron (Craig Mums Grant), a checkers expert, at the game.
 |
| Craig Mums Gran, Ali Arkane. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
On the other hand, he’s thick enough to let the cops send
him to prison, needs the concept of “notches” explained, and is confused by the
word “mitigating.” He, of course, constitutes the play’s conundrum.
 |
| Craig Mums Grant (below), Ali Arkane. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Because you can’t trust a single thing that follows, including
his escape, you realize it’s all a setup allowing the characters to wax philosophical
about mortality, good and evil, the concept of time, and to quote the Bible. You
may even begin to feel you’re here more for a sermon than a play, although the
point of the sermon is pretty vague.
Much of this comes out in the draggiest scene of an already
draggy play when Douglass finds himself in the abode of the actual killer,
Harry (Javier Molina). The events here are so unlikely that, if an intermission
came when it ended, it’s where I would have fled had I not the steely discipline
of a professional reviewer, forged in the heat of so many other dramatic
misfires.
 |
| Tricia Alexandro, Ali Arkane, Paul Ben-Victor. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
The staging by TBG artistic director Lee Brock heightens the
play’s weaknesses more than it helps them. Tedious pacing, especially in Harry’s
scene, and a tendency to place one character upstage and another down, forcing
the latter (usually Douglass) to try speaking upstage and down at the same time,
are particular drawbacks.
 |
| Craig Mums Grant. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Arkane struggles to find the right tone for Douglass, his
essential approach being to keep a goofy half-smile on his face. Grant brings
the right grizzled wisdom to Myron and Molina can do nothing with Harry. Ben-Victor
and Alexandro as the smarmy cops offer the strongest performances, she
especially, making the most of the sardonic repartee that provides the play’s
most effective scenes.
 |
| Craig Mums Grant, Ali Arkane. Photo: Edward T. Morris. |
Otherwise, Perp could
be summed up, to the tune of M-O-T-H-E-R, in the song I cited earlier:
“P” is for the pressure to confess crime
“E” is for Doug’s earthworms and his bugs
“R” is for his readiness to do time
“P” is for police who act like thugs
Put them all together they spell PE—RP
A play I can’t give many hugs.
The Barrow Group Mainstage
312 W. 36th St., NYC
Through April 11
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