There is something inherently theatrical about Dwight Chapel. The cold, stone columns stretching to the vaulted ceiling; the high, narrow windows reflecting the lights of Old Campus onto the stark, grey walls; the airy emptiness and the weight of sanctity. There's no real reason to be enthralled sitting there, but you are. The chapel hasn't actually done anything to merit such contemplation, it just does. It inexplicably sucks you in.
The same can be said about A Murder of Crows, playing this weekend in the Chapel through the Sudler Fund. Despite a creepy, self-celebratory tone and a maddening lack of focus, Murder grabs hold of you from its opening lines, and very rarely gives you the opportunity to let go.
Haughty to an extreme, the play presents us with a host of clichéd critiques of society and imagines itself strikingly original. All the stock characters are here: the long-suffering, lower-class, single mother with a heart of gold; the wealthy socialites who talk in shrill voices while flaunting their clothes and money; the alienated, impossibly smart teenager who shuns all things worldly for life's "deeper meanings." Even the basic plot, for all its strained quirkiness, is overdone: the decent, poor relations move in with the snobby rich couple, and discomfort ensues.
But, thanks to clever (uncredited) direction by Andi Stover, BK '97, and some fine acting, the play nevertheless is consistently interesting. Mac Wellman, the playwright, compensates for his weak characters and plot by throwing in random sideplots that get more and more ridiculous as the production goes on. One man dies in an avalanche of chicken excrement. Another slowly metamorphasizes into a statue. White people turn into Asians, crows sing and dance, and people from Michigan reek.
All of these relentlessly idiosyncratic details would be a shallow excuse for a play if they weren't so artfully embraced by the play's very competent cast. Lisa Louttit, JE '97, is especially engaging as the woman whose family becomes homeless after her husband's untimely death (the chickens, remember?). Wellman's monologues can be very distracted creatures, often lacking any sense of intended audience or emotional impact. But Louttit maneuvers her monologues beautifully, turning them into wrenchingly funny and illuminating asides. Her displaced housewife is painfully enchanting, keeping her frustrations bottled up inside and leaving her nothing but a deadpan gaze to offer the world.
As Howard, the wealthy brother Louttit moves in with, Ben Landsverk, TC '99, gets stuck with some of those aimless monologues. But Landsverk is very good at finding the humor in Wellman's more opaque lines and bringing it to the surface. Landsverk's character also has the honor of bringing the play's themes to light. Howard is a man obsessed with violence, anger, and destruction, and we slowly begin to see that all of Murder's characters are destroying one another, just as Howard likes destroying helpless animals.
Other actors find their written parts so lacking in substance that they must compensate with exaggerated physical presence. Teresa Dahl-Brendine, DC '97, makes her role as Howard's shrewish wife all about hair, voice, and attitude. Angus Beasley, DC '98, expounds on the theme of destruction as a Gulf War veteran turning into stone, but his looming, gold-plated body brings more to the production than his lines do.
All of them are savvy enough to rescue the pretentiousness of the affair and keep the audience occupied, if not exactly emotionally involved. Dahl-Brendine's attacks on Louttit and her rebel-daughter (Tracy Copolla, SM '98) are just over-the-top enough to work; Landsverk's sleaziness is just eerie enough to hold our interest, and everyone does his or her part to keep the production swiftly moving through its brief one-hour run. Director Stover deserves much of the credit for her actors' success. Any hold this strange theater piece has over its audience is due largely to her effective use of space and movement.
As for the space itself, it is simply decorated by Hilary Koob-Sassen, DC '97, to keep the space open and airy. Sound is sometimes a problem (the echoes do more bouncing around the room than Phish), but not too bad. The artful lighting design is a joint effort between Tyler Wilkins, BK '98; Leon Grigsby, CC '97; Ben Boyd, ES '99; and Dave Kearns, CC '97.
It is difficult to explain just what kind of power A Murder of Crows has over its audience. It's short, it's confused, and it's clichéd. But somehow the surprises keep coming, and the actors infuse every line they can with knowing humor. It won't be the greatest play you'll ever see, but you might remember bits of it in spite of yourself.
And if you've never been in Dwight Chapel, you'll remember that, too.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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