'Crows' pass judgment in hit-or-miss satire

Generally speaking, it's about America's obvious inconsistencies—imperialism, bigotry, and rabid patriotism. More specifically, it's about an American family—a normal middle- class guy, his obnoxious, racist wife, his calmly crazy sister, her dead husband, their two prophetic children, and a trio of crows who sit and judge them all from a telephone wire. But nothing really happens to these people. To be fair, Raymond (Peter Fenzel, ES '03), the dead husband, does get knocked off by "an avalanche of radioactive chicken shit." And Georgia (Emily Lodish, TD '03), his obnoxious, racist sister-in-law, does beg her normal middle class husband, Howard (Richard Silverstein, SM '02) to kick his "unusual" widowed sister, Nella (Jessie Wiener, ES '05), and her "unusual" children, Susannah and Andy (Brooke Lyons, MC '03 and Peter Cellini, DC '04), out of their house. But these events and scenes, however symbolic or comical, do not give the play any sense of plot, nor do they lend the characters any dimension.

Despite their underdeveloped parts, the actors are excellent. Wiener's carefully suppressed mania as Nella is amusing, Lodish is hilarious as the finger-pointing, hyper-patriotic, and extraordinarily lucky Georgia, and Lyons delivers an endearing portrayal of Susannah, the prophetic adolescent who is obsessed with the weather and speaks like an encyclopedia. Silverstein's smilingly diplomatic Howard plays off all of them well, admitting Georgia's ugliness of character while declaring with admiration that "her bigotry was beautiful, too" before offering some avuncular advice to Susannah: "Why don't you go throw some rocks at frogs? That will make you feel better."

YOO SUN CHEONG/YH Sensory deprivation? No, but the play does keep you in the dark.

The play is full of one-liners like these that are meant to remind us of the sickness of our country and make us laugh at the same time. But it's also filled with convoluted philosophical musings and pedantic monologues. Cellini's ingenuous Andy, who appears as a living golden statue of a Gulf War serviceman, gives only one speech, about finding beauty and contentment, which for him means being a statue. Painted gold, he did glisten beautifully under the lights—an American golden boy in a literal sense.

To Iverson's credit, the production does justice to satire with an ample supply of symbolism. The set, which represents Howard and Georgia's front yard, is sparse, but all the elements of a stereotypical suburban American scene are present: the white picket fence, the laundry line, the rocker on the front porch, the flag mailbox. The program even notes "America, Evening" as the setting, reminding the audience that the play is a critique of the American Way and maybe a little bit of an apocalyptic warning as well.

The play rushes through several scenes that might have held more symbolic significance than they managed to express. There is one scene in which Nella, Howard, and Georgia take turns describing their mental images of God and the universe. To Nella, God is a speck of mildew, but to Howard, He is a bowling ball balanced atop a pyramid that rests on the back of the first in an infinite series of turtles. The pretext for this discussion is Raymond's funeral, and its greater purpose may very well be to demonstrate the variety and idiocy of individuals' views of the world. Unfortunately, that purpose is lost in the scene, which seems only capable of achieving a series of laughs from the audience. Much of the play falls victim to this same ailment, and the net result is an overwhelming set of serious but uninspired issues addressed in such a slap-stick manner that the necessary balance in satire between the real point and its ludicrous vessel is lost.

In another scene, Lyons's Susannah listens as Fenzel's Raymond raves about why people like them don't belong "here." His ramblings, much like all of the play's frantically preachy monologues, are virtually unintelligible, and when he finally stops to catch his breath, the wide-eyed yet all-knowing Susannah says to him, "I understand...I guess," echoing the audience's exact thoughts. While this is intended as a stab at proselytism, it's clear that the play endorses at least some of Raymond's maxims. "But let's get to the point," he says. "Let's talk about the weather," to which Susannah responds, "I think it's going to change." They are profound words—perhaps the only ones in the whole play. The exact meaning, however, remains woefully unclear.

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