Reviews
Read My Lips:
Providence Journal - Providence, R.I.
by WILLIAM K. GALE, Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer
Sep 17, 1994
A century ago, Rudyard Kipling wrote that "the Colonel's Lady and Rosie O'Grady" are the same under the skin. In an oblique way, the Men's Theater Festival at NewGate Theatre may arrive at roughly the same conclusion.
And that is that under the surface we are all pretty much the same in that we struggle with our demons, revel in our successes, and sometimes have trouble deciding which is which.
But there's little poetry in the festival called Men's Stories, produced by David Tulli, which opened Thursday night. Instead, it is five short plays all of which more or less look at the situation of men and - inevitably then - women today.
If no conclusions are reached, these men's stories are interesting, provocative, funny and well worth seeing.
Perhaps the most fully realized in terms of both writing and production is Read My Lips by Martin Blank. Directed fluidly by Brien Lang, it is stylish, funny and pointed.
Blank, a New Yorker and the only non-local author represented here, knows how to have you chuckling. Do you know what Chico Marx said to Tallulah Bankhead? He . . . well, you better catch that one for yourself. And don't miss the parody of a tango, either.
But amid the fantasy and fun, Read My Lips asks about serious things, wonders about men and their shells and what's underneath and looks at the women who love them. Nicely played by a large cast (Clare Vadeboncoeur, Jim O'Brien, Lisa Vecchione, Antanus Vainus, Deb McGowan, Chris Byrnes, Ed DeBoo) this one-act play pierces a core, turns the stage into a mirror.
Julia Steiny's The Man from Gomorrah has a mirror, too, and what is seen looks, sounds and smells suspiciously like a certain city we all know.
You see, there is this guy who wants a job. And, you know, you want a job in this city? Then, you go see somebody . . .
In fact, Steiny's uproarious farce could be retitled I Know a Guy which some of us think ought to become the new motto around here. But, anyway, playwright Steiny calls on her background in Providence politics and an acute eye for local characteristics to write a very funny, very telling work in which a young-ish man visits his priest.
Played with vigor by Harold Ashton and David Tulli, and directed by the author, The Guy from Gomorrah is a local gem. Whether it will play in the rest of the country, I don't know. But in La Prov, it's politically perfect.
Betrayal of the Hunter opens the evening on a considerably darker note. David Tulli's play begins with psychobabble about men "finding ourselves" somewhere "deep in our guts." But once you are past that, the work concerns the mind-numbing terrors of fighting the war in Vietnam.
To those of us who were in the military in different eras and places, the Viet vets have sometimes seemed a little over the edge, even whiny. But Betrayal of the Hunter goes a ways toward showing the unique horrors of the time.
Assisted by Cindi Doherty, Pat Hawkridge carefully directs Ben D'Andrea, Don Sheehan and Bruce T. Page, who manages to find inchoate power in a role that could have been scattered.
Two men, one woman, in a bar. Pickup city with a twist. That's the idea that Cutting the Tree goes with. John Grey's work centers on a guy who's getting over a divorce and runs into a buzzsaw in the form of the woman in the bar.
The work is funny, raunchy and seems like a parable for the problems of relationships which are only glancingly engaged. Deb McGowan directs William Oakes, Geoff White and Cynthia Thurston who is particularly deadpan funny.
PRNDL by Francis DiMenno seems more suited to being an actor's audition monologue than a play fit for an audience. Directed by the ubiquitious Tulli, Terrence Shea does all he can with the story of a poor guy, old at 33, and lost in a world he can't deal with.
So, Men's Stories. Vietnam, of course, And jobs and relationships and relating and women and women. Even a flashback to Samuel Beckett's famous line from Waiting for Godot: "I can't go on. I'll go on" in Read My Lips.
The NewGate presentation is an old idea made new. It's a good one, too. It lets us know we're all in this together.
* * *
Men's Stories at NewGate Theatre, 134 Mathewson St., Providence, through Oct. 1. Tickets $5. Phone (401) 421-9680.
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