Oh, 'Honey': campy queen bee rules young drone

JOHN YI/YH Buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. Bzzzz... Buzz? Buzz! Glug glug gluggg...

As Bees in Honey Drown, the title of the latest work to go up in the Whitney Humanities Center, might well be some kind of mission statement for the production itself. As far as titles go, As Bees in Honey Drown is not mundane, nor does it shrink from attention, with a certain aesthetic ring and mystery that cannot help but invite intrigue. At the same time, it has a deliberate complexity to it that renders it a bit cumbersome and begs for truncation. The title is, in a word, ambitious, complete with all the positive and negative implications that go along with such a hard reach.

With a running time of around three hours, countless set and costume changes, and a script that tackles the themes of artistic integrity, sexuality, and more within a framework of dramatic parody, the production of As Bees in Honey Drown is, like its title, markedly ambitious. This risk, on the part of director David Brind, JE '00, pays off in many respects. This play achieves levels of humor, romantic tension, social commentary, and dramatic self-definition that most plays would not even attempt to achieve simultaneously.

However, in striving for so much, the production becomes somewhat ungovernable. As such extreme demands on the stage crew and actors cause repeated technical mishaps and add to its excessive running time, one begins to wish this production had had a bit more tech-nical support so that it could have better realized its ambitious potential.

The play is set against the deceptively simple backdrop of several large white curtains. Tapered across the stage in such a way that allows scenes to unfold in four or five distinct locales, these curtains are enhanced by a rainbow of lighting and a film projector that, in several scenes, allows the backdrop to become New York City in living color. Evolving in front of this is the story of Evan Wyler (Michael Braun, TC '00), an up-and-coming writer taken in by the charm of the rich dilettante Alexa Vere de Vere (Lauren Popper, ES '01). Alexa, after inciting Evan to author a screenplay about her life, proceeds to introduce the young writer to the glamour and luxury of New York's high society. Overcome with both admiration and sympathy for this figure of carefree opulence, Evan falls in love with his female companion—despite his own homosexuality. This relationship, founded on such precarious grounds, predictably falls apart, and Evan must regain what he has lost—literally and figuratively—in the life of the doomed affair.

The two leads both excel in fashioning the roles they are given. Alexa, as another character notices, has a personality that seems to be derived from an amalgam of the female icons of cinematic camp—which, while humorous, also leave Popper with the difficult task of revitalizing a role that has been seen before. Popper constructs a persona so persistently and energetically exaggerated, however, that she is able to overcome cliché and present a character that can talk about Saks Fifth Avenue and self-actualization in the same sentence and still achieve a degree of emotional impact. Braun, playing the classic role of the naive outsider, also interprets his character in such a way that overcomes its somewhat formulaic construction. As Evan takes on New York with seemingly boundless enthusiasm and an awkward smile, it's easy to sympathize and even identify with his awed innocence.

The two characters, together on-stage for much of the production, achieve a tension between them that carries the play through to its end. Their relationship, as it develops and unfolds, maintains a constancy that permits the frequent scene changes, multitudes of supporting characters, and sometimes frantic music and lights to add to, rather than distract from, the production as a whole. While the two are not able to reign in all the ambitious excesses of the production, they do much in compensating for its flaws. Held together by their presence, As Bees in Honey Drown becomes a captivating, though not perfect, attempt at superseding the traditional limitations of college theater.

Back to A&E...