“Apocalypse Now”
As I’m often forced to note, each to his taste. Shows I
love, others hate; shows I hate, others love. And everywhere in between. As review
aggregators like Show-Score reveal,
with critics’ scores in green, yellow, and red, many shows produce a
traffic-light rainbow of opinions.
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| Caroline Langrishe. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Betts, whose Invincible,
seen on the same stage in 2017, was an equally madcap domestic stew with
multiple thematic targets, places the action of Caroline’s Kitchen in the attractive basement kitchen—expertly designed
by James Perkins—of celebrity chef Caroline Mortimer (Caroline Langrishe) and her
banker husband Mike (Aden Gillett). There, the appealing, eternally chipper
Caroline, in her early 50s, broadcasts a “Rachael Ray Show”-like cooking show.
As a crucifix hanging on the upstage wall indicates,
Caroline’s also a devout Christian who even read Theology at Oxford. Not,
however, that it stops her from either constant tippling or adulterous
relations. This beloved icon of “middle England’s” values is, like those values,
ripe for the compost heap.
When we first meet her, on a steamily hot June day, she
seems to be in the midst of an on-the-air interview with a Swedish female chef,
during which the latter presents Caroline with the gift of a knife. That glittering
utensil thereafter sits prominently on the kitchen’s island counter, reminding
us of Chekhov’s dictum about introducing a gun on stage.
The broadcast turns out to be a rehearsal Caroline has to
cut short because she needs the kitchen to prepare a family dinner that evening
to celebrate her son’s having graduated from Cambridge with a First. The Swede
is actually her mini-skirted personal assistant, Amanda (Jasmyn Banks), the sexually
voracious bombshell who throws her hips around as if their names were Twirly
and Whirly.
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| Jasmyn Banks, Caroline Langrishe. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Soon, the fresh-mouthed, probably hopped-up Amanda—who often
speaks in Yoda-like syntax: “Stuck she is in traffic”—is involved in trying to
squash the paparazzi bottom feeders who plan to post career-threatening photos
of Caroline taken when she was falling-down drunk. (Ah, the perils of
celebrity!) The daughter of a woman with MS (everyone has a backstory), Amanda also
takes a moment to tell her Jesus-worshiping boss that she considers God “a
nasty old fuck.”
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| Caroline Langrishe, Tom England. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Four more principals, each passionately self-centered, soon
appear. One is Graeme (James Sutton), a burly, former footballer in his mid-30s,
who became a carpenter after a career-killing injury. A married man, he’s
making repairs at Caroline’s house, which she and Mike are planning to sell. Older
women being his thing, he’s having a torrid affair with her. He even feels
discomfort when Amanda (who’s also carrying on with another married man) is all
over him.
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| Tom England. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Leo (Tom England)—the right-wing Caroline’s socialist, vegan,
climate activist, and, surprisingly, cigarette-smoking son—warns of the
coming apocalypse. He says he wants to do humanitarian work in Syria rather than
accept parental support for a career and new apartment, but he also must
unburden himself of a secret regarding his sexuality. If only he could find a
chance to express it.
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| Tom England, Aden Gillett, Elizabeth Boag. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Mike, Leo’s garrulous dad, enters like a windstorm, his face beneath his cap-line bright red from sun exposure, carrying his golf bag after a
round on the links. During the game, someone he knows died of a heart attack,
his face to the ground, his butt in the air. Concerned about his own mortality,
he’s a loud, boisterous, force of nature, with Neanderthal-leaning social beliefs. Getting a word in edgewise with him is almost as unlikely as the hole-in-one
he boasts of having sunk.
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| Aden Gillett. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
The play exposes the emotional rift not only between Mike
and Caroline but that between him and Leo. When Leo finally admits that he’s
gay, Mike’s antediluvian inability to process what he’s heard is funny enough
to be in the comedy hall of fame. As per the formula, of course, he, too, is
extramaritally inclined.
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| Elizabeth Boag. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Finally, there’s Graeme’s wife, Sally (Elizabeth Boag, who
also starred, memorably, in Betts’s Invincible).
She’s come to wreak vengeance because she discovered the Graeme-Caroline affair
from Graeme’s phone, but everyone assumes she’s actually a lady named Mrs. Minto
who’s interested in buying the house.
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| James Sutton, Elizabeth Boag. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Misunderstandings pile up, gallons of wine are downed, an
apocalyptic storm erupts (evoked by a great sound design from Max Pappenheim
and terrific lighting by Chris Withers), and the domestic equivalent of all bloody
hell boiling over comes to pass. And I do mean bloody.
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| Tom England, Caroline Langrishe. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
The entire cast carries out its rambunctious actions with
remarkable comedic energy and aplomb, always maintaining a grounding in reality
no matter how farfetched or bizarre their behavior. But as things begin to spin
out of control, Caroline becomes the juggler whose task is to stay composed and
keep things from flying off into chaos.
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| Caroline Langrishe, Jasmyn Banks, James Sutton, Tom England. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Langrishe displays the skill of an agile farceur, remaining consistently believable while executing Caroline’s task
of keeping her stiff upper lip and sanity from collapsing amidst a veritable
riot of zaniness, including her drinking problems, infidelity, and the challenges to her
piety. Then there's the scandalous photos; Leo’s sexuality; Amanda’s manipulations; Graeme’s
groping; Mike’s grousing; Sally’s jealousy; the big storm, and so on.
Gillett’s Mike is equally exceptional, especially since he must perform some unusually difficult physical tasks, including a dangerous fall that couldn’t be more convincing.
Gillett’s Mike is equally exceptional, especially since he must perform some unusually difficult physical tasks, including a dangerous fall that couldn’t be more convincing.
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| Aden Gillett, Caroline Langrishe. Photo: Sam Taylor. |
Don’t expect to find yourself caring much about any of these
inane creatures. They’re essentially cartoons, intended not to make you feel or,
despite the coating of social import (some of it outdated), even think. So, if you
can appreciate some well-acted, well-constructed, farcical mania, its 90
intermissionless minutes should give you lots of comic meat to chew on. Just be
careful not to choke on all the funny parts.
59E59
Theaters/Theater A
59
E. 59th St., NYC
Through
May 25
OTHER
VIEWPOINTS:
