A heart-wrenching work of staggering nothingness

BY WALLACE KAY

I’m giving Meet Curtains, a show going up on Fri., Jan. 26 at the Ezra Stiles Little Theater, a bad review for a simple reason: I want it all to myself. I hope you’ve stopped reading this already. I hope you've forgotten that this play even exists. I hope you don't go to it. I hope that if you do go to it, it's not there. I hope no one ever sees it again, and that the only stage it's performed on is the ornate acoustic paradise inside my head.

ROGER KUO/YH

Why do I want this play? I'll spare you the psychobabble necessary to explain it. Actually, no I won't. Here's why: if I could mentally internalize the Colombia-pure originality of the script, the around-the-corner theatrical insights of the director (toddler Mason Phelps, CC '04), and the not just professional but masterly acting performances of each and every actor, I would be the next Messiah. It's that bad. Don't see it.

For those you of you callous enough to have ignored my admonition, I suppose I'll spite you by describing in purposefully oblique terms why this play is a groundbreaking house of the future. Some of you may have seen the posters. I hope I'm not giving away the surprise by warning you not to take them at face value. There's much more to it than nudity, vulgarity, and misogyny. In fact, in retrospect, the title of the play fits it so extraordinarily well that I have to laugh at the producers' little joke on the uninitiated. They want you to think it's a senseless work of idiocy—that way only people willing to take a big risk will come, and consequently when theyŐre rewarded with its expectation-dwarfing excellence, the payoff will be all that much bigger.

As the play begins, we're in a loud, crowded bar called Curtains. All the patrons are drooling slobs, too drunk to notice either the hilarious Beethoven-with-beats music playing on the P.A., or the half-nude sirens dancing along to it on the counter. All of a sudden, in a novel feat of timing and directorial confidence, people and dancers freeze in silent place, and the main character, Chess Foster (Jason Duncan), gets up from his stool and delivers the opening monologue. He and two of the other patrons, he explains to us, are FBI undercover agents. Their original assignment was to check out rumors that the bar was a hangout for hitmen. After they'd hung out there for a few weeks, though, they realized what a massive understatement that had been: the bar, including bartenders, waiters, waitresses, and strippers, is nothing but hitmen. Curtains, Chess explains in a tone that alternates between fear-induced frenzy and fear-induced calm, is a covert, internationally patronized, for-profit assassination team. Chess knows what he's stumbled into is a lot bigger than the FBI, and consequently, macrocosmically bigger than tiny him and his speedily shortening life.

One of the half-dozen or so brilliant subtleties of the script (by Louis Cancelmi, SY '00) is that although the stage is set for a gun-blazing, blood splattering Hollywood action drama, the story, though hard-hitting, is about people—tortured people—and the convoluted, emotionally charged bonds that keep them together. Chess figures out that the best way to destroy the organization is from the inside, to turn the members against themselves. These people are so savage at heart that turning them into cannibals will only take time.

The cast is diverse and fantabulous. Besides the few Yale students, most of cast is from an avant-garde group, the ExperiMental Theatre, which is based in N.Y. This includes three of the dancers (Trisha Lawler, Mira Hegstead and Sandra Ngo), a trio that manages to be inspiringly sexy and jaw-droppingly multi-talented. If Charlie's are Angels, then Louis's are something else. But what would a web of love be without a spider? Glenn Cheney's Tarantula the bartender is a darkly disturbing portrayal of a rot-filled, loveless sociopath; he is the ultimate desire of the murder-vixens. Cheney would steal the show if it were stealable, but it isn't. The acting talent is spread so evenly that everyone makes everyone else look like a ringer.

A few other surprise Yale actors (I wish I could trumpet their names from the hills!) round out the cast. The two guys and a gal have surprisingly important roles, and definitely rise to the occasion. I only wish I could recommend this play to others. As it stands, however, I plan to keep it to myself.

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