THEATRE
REVIEW:
“RECKLESS”
at 6th @ PennTheatre
Published
in Gay and Lesbian Times December 19, 2002
It's Christmas Eve. The presents are
all wrapped and the children are tucked into bed. Rachel is feeling all warm
and fuzzy, looking out at the snow, reminiscing about Christmases past. She's
about to have a "euphoria attack." And then, her husband confesses
that he's hired a hit-man, taken out a contract on her life, and she's got five
minutes to escape. She thinks he's kidding until she hears the breaking glass
downstairs and scrambles out the window in her nightgown and slippers. Thus
begins the oddball odyssey that is "Reckless," Craig Lucas' 1983
acid-laced holiday confection. It's a cruel farce, really, about identity and the
victims of circumstance. About how our appearance to others may have nothing to
do with who we really are. About no matter how completely anyone -- lover,
friend, spouse, therapist -- thinks they know us, there's always something
concealed.
Lucas likes to straddle the line
between fantasy and reality. In "Prelude to a Kiss," an old man and a
young newly-married woman switch bodies. Here, a woman who thought she had it
all has nothing, and has to find herself; ultimately, this wide-eyed naif takes
refuge in Alaska, where it's always Christmas. But on the way, she has many a
bizarre experience with a raft of eccentrics, including six 'psycho'
therapists. It's never quite clear if what we're seeing is really happening or
is part of Rachel's conscious (or sub-conscious) imaginings. And that's the
delicious fun of it. Every time you think you know what's going to happen next,
Lucas snaps your neck into a whiplash, hairpin turn of events. It's a wild
ride, and pretty much fun most of the time, though it does get a bit preachy.
Yet there's a legitimate holiday message buried within. "A lot of people
want to help save the whales," one shrink says. "But tell them they
can help save a human being."
The 6th @ Penn production just about nails the absurd,
farcical tone of the quirky piece. Director Kevin Burk keeps the pace lively,
though a bit less scene-changing would make the evening fly at its intended
break-neck speed. Burk has amassed a
delightfully droll, chameleon cast. It's great to see the peripatetic Rick Stevens
back onstage. He's hilarious as Lloyd, the rugged guy with a heart of gold,
who, like his deaf, paraplegic wife (lovely, animated René Peña), is not as
saintly as he seems. Both have haunted pasts, offbeat secrets and questionable
motives. Stevens spends half the show in a Santa suit, with just his eyes
communicating his passion and pain. Robin Christ is amusing as the series of
six shrinks Rachel consults, but perhaps intentionally (though less
humorously), they become rather interchangeable. Celeste Innocenti makes the
most dramatic transformations -- from dowdy office frump to game-show 'Vanna'
to derelict and mental patient. She's a hoot. Al Myers is fine in several
roles. But it's ultimately Lisel Gorell-Getz who centers and carries the show. She
has the adorable, ingenuous perkiness of Meg Ryan, and she makes us laugh and
cry at her perverse and other-worldly adventures. Dreams, as well as
personality traits, seem to be mutable in her upside-down world, which darkly
and comically demonstrates that life is often impelled by the vagaries of an
ironic, fickle fate.
"RECKLESS" runs through January 5 at 6th
@ Penn Theatre in Hillcrest; 619-688-9210.
©2002
Patté Productions Inc.