{"id":15972,"date":"2015-01-08T18:20:01","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T02:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=15972"},"modified":"2015-01-14T16:49:50","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T00:49:50","slug":"anarchist-is-an-intense-intellectual-david-mamet-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/anarchist-is-an-intense-intellectual-david-mamet-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Anarchist\u2019 is an intense, intellectual David Mamet exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tamar Cohn (left, as Cathy) confronts Velina Brown as Ann in \u201cThe Anarchist.\u201d Photo by David Wilson.<\/p><\/div>\n

I normally love playwright David Mamet’s rhythms.<\/p>\n

And his caustic humor.<\/p>\n

Nor am I put off by his usual torrent of f-bombs.<\/p>\n

But \u201cThe Anarchist\u201d is cerebral horseplay of a noticeably different color. It\u2019s Mamet soberly executing mental calisthenics, taking both sides of an argument at the same time.<\/p>\n

Using longer \u2014 and complete \u2014 sentences. Without vulgarities or drollness.<\/p>\n

And with less of individuals talking over each other.<\/p>\n

In a new Theatre Rhinoceros production, Mamet still does what he does best \u2014 poke beneath the veneer of characters to exhume the vagaries of human nature.<\/p>\n

I see it as an 85-minute double diatribe.<\/p>\n

Director John Fisher combines with Mamet to offer an intensely dramatic, philosophical feast that pinpoints a two-woman tug-of-war over rehabilitation, faith and sex.<\/p>\n

But they present a dense repast not easily digested.<\/p>\n

The storyline?<\/p>\n

A lesbian anarchist on the day of a parole interview confronts a female \u201crepresentative of the state\u201d\u00a0\u2014 perhaps her warden, maybe a prison psychologist, conceivably a parole officer \u2014 who will decide whether she should be freed.<\/p>\n

The drama stars Tamar Cohn as bilingual, properly educated Cathy, an admitted terrorist killer of two guards in an echo of a real incident involving the Weather Underground in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

She performs in tandem with Velina Brown as Ann, Cathy\u2019s interrogator who may have been persecuting her \u2014perpetually.<\/p>\n

Both actors are splendid.<\/p>\n

Flawless, in fact.<\/p>\n

Each steeps her character with flesh and blood, with all the nuanced emotional back-and-forthness humans bring to challenging situations.<\/p>\n

Each excels, too, at extracting the most from Mamet\u2019s prose.<\/p>\n

Such as Cathy\u2019s pithy, \u201cNeither God nor human worth can be proved.\u201d Or, \u201cThe state does not have [the] power to put me on the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisher, meanwhile, magnifies the duo\u2019s conflict by placing Brown, whose height is imposing and whose demeanor is appropriately unbending, next to Cohn, whose smaller, chameleon-like body can shift in an instant from servile to haughty.<\/p>\n

Cohn, who lives in Marin County \u201cwith a terrific husband and a decrepit cat,\u201d adroitly depicts an inmate who\u2019s served 35 years and become a believer in Christ despite her Jewish upbringing.<\/p>\n

Brown, co-artistic director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, deftly reproduces a bureaucrat plagued with a major decision just before her tenure ends but hell-bent on having the prisoner reveal where her former accomplice\/lover is.<\/p>\n

Fisher and Mamet are, in a sense, joined at the hip.<\/p>\n

Mamet had encouraged Fisher as a young director. And Fisher directed his \u201cBoston Marriage\u201d at The Rhino, America\u2019s longest running queer theater.<\/p>\n

When I attended \u201cThe Anarchist,\u201d news bulletins became a factor.<\/p>\n

I found it chilling that a trio of terrorists murdered a dozen people in the Paris office of a satirical publication the same day.<\/p>\n

An anachronistic chunk of recorded pre-show music \u2014 Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cThe Times They Are A\u2019Changin\u2019\u201d \u2014 also bothered me. I understood its symbolic value but the tune was jarring because it pre-dates by years the founding of the Weather Underground, whose terrorism had begun at San Francisco\u2019s Ferry Terminal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve enjoyed Mamet creations for decades \u2014 \u201cGlengarry Glen Ross,\u201d which earned the Pulitzer Prize in drama, \u201cSpeed the Plow,\u201d \u201cAmerican Buffalo,\u201d \u201cOleanna,\u201d \u201cRace.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I do with Picasso\u2019s diverse periods, I revel in Mamet\u2019s \u2014 from his earliest male-oriented works (that emphasize character and the way people really talk) to his middle years (in which plot grows more important) to his latter-day female-oriented plays and their accent on social and political issues.<\/p>\n

But \u201cThe Anarchist\u201d is by far his thickest, most intellectual, wordiest exercise \u2014 and arguably the least entertaining.<\/p>\n

The playwright apparently insisted that I \u2014 and the young, mostly gay crowd at The Rhino \u2014 work harder than I\u2019d wanted.<\/p>\n

It was as if I were expected to hold my breath for the duration of the play lest I miss a crucial phrase or concept.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, however, the drama merited my full attention \u2014 even though critics bashed the original 2012 Broadway offering with Patti LuPone and Deborah Winger.<\/p>\n

Causing it to run only 17 performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Anarchist\u201d plays at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St. (at Front and Battery streets), San Francisco, through Jan. 17. <\/em>Evening performances, Sundays, 7 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 3 p.m. Tickets: $15 to $30 (subject to change). Information: (800) 838-3006 or www.TheRhino.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> <\/em>or check out his blog at www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3.5] I normally love playwright David Mamet’s rhythms. And his caustic humor. Nor am I put off by his usual torrent of f-bombs. But \u201cThe Anarchist\u201d is cerebral…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"