"Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin/ ...no reckoning made , but sent to my account/ With all my imperfections on my head."-Hamlet
Though Gadi Dechter, DC '97, uses Shakespeare's lines as impetus for his volatile play, the work pays homage to far more recent theatrical models. Reckoning owes much to the "Angry Young Man" school as reconfigured by David Mamet and Sam Shepherd. While this production, directed by Trip Cullman, TC '97, bears the earmarks of a playwright struggling to find a personal style within the bounds of a familiar genre, Dechter has crafted a relevant and provocative piece of theater.
Reckoning eavesdrops on a few days in the life of Alex (Dechter), a disaffected, discomfitin 20-something telemarketer, rife with the sins and imperfections mentioned above. Unsettled by paranoia, prejudice and anger, Alex only leaves his low-rent apartment to journey to and from work. He says that he used to claim to be from Compton, but "I just wanted to identify with them back then, I never wanted to live with them."
As he tells his gay neighbor Michael [doesn't every recent play seem to have a gay neighbor?] (Zeke Farrow, BK '96), he feels he has to engage in subterfuge just to cross the street. "I walk with a look on my face like I'm retarded, retards rarely have a lot of cash on them, y'know?"
Once safely in the apartment, Alex coddles himself with booze and Japanese porn, graphically fantasizing about his kimono-clad dream girl (Merritt Lear, ? '97). He also engages in a self-mocking flirtation with Michael, a boytoy for second-rate sugar daddies who are almost as poor as he himself. The uncomfortable and unconsummated sexual tension builds and culminates at the arrival of Robyn (Lisa Louditt, ? '97), Alex's old college girlfriend. While Michael tries to win Alex's affections, Alex sets out to win Robyn's affections, first subtly then brutally.
Dechter and Cullman do not set out to win the audience's affections; the goal they have in mind is testing limits. They push the characters, the dialogue, the acting, and the trust and patience of the viewer to precarious heights. It's ambitious and difficult, but ultimately rewarding.
Dechter has designed most of the dialogue to make the listener squirm. Alex belabors women, blacks, gays and other minorities with irony, energy and conviction. Though a straight white mail, Alex remains completely convinced that he is society's real victim. The fact that his bigotry stems from fear doesn't condone these views; it explains why he has them.
In Alex, Dechter is not striving to espouse or defend unpopular opinions, he has simply created a character who holds them. The judgment is left up to the audience as a challenge. This unaccustomed responsibility may account for some of the discomfort on the part of the viewer. It's difficult to loathe a character and identify with him at once. Lest this burden grow too heavy, Dechter has also made sure that parts of the play provide comic relief.
In between his probing of the boundaries of political correctness and decorum, Dechter manages to insert some hilarious dialogue. When Michael asks Alex why Alex is wearing his cock ring, the dead pan reply is "I'm bored." And when Cop A (Nicole Evans-Lambert, ? '96) arrives to arrest the dessert-serving Alex, she tells him, harshly, to "put down the cake and step away from the table." Notably, Cop A is partnered with Sergeant Dworkin, doubtlessly a jibe at feminist scholar Andrea Dworkin.
Cullman's direction also walks a line between exploring confines of taste and providing levity. He choreographs a movement sequence between Alex and his fan-twirling dream girl beneath a red special. The piece would be more disturbing were it not for the kicky 60's Brazilian jazz playing in the background and the appearance of Michael in frou-frou pink silk pajamas.
His direction of the actors, however, lacks the assurance of his technical orchestrations. Both Dechter and Farrow, while always involving, waffle between stereotyped mannerisms and realistic portrayals. This works for most of the production, but when confronted with Lauditt's naturalism, an awkward clash of styles occurs and the three-person scene more strained than necessary. Cullman also tends towards the violent and the histrionic, letting nuances slide in favor of high-energy conflicts.
Nuances abound, however, in Josh Melnick's creative, revealing set design. More than a presentation of a messy apartment, Melnick creates the atmosphere of characters about to fall apart at the seams. The stage alternates between exposure and cover-up, explosion and restraint. The characters reveal their contorted lives, just as the walls reveal the plumbing beneath.
In Reckoning, one can see a similar level of construction beneath the action. Some plot points are contrived, others not sufficiently covered, the text occasionally gives way to derivative cliche, yet Dechter and Cullman have provided a framework for a play both repellant and compelling, a challenge to its viewer.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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