{"id":18540,"date":"2015-05-29T11:26:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T18:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=18540"},"modified":"2015-08-03T10:19:16","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T17:19:16","slug":"fear-and-loathing-comes-to-the-english-seaside-in-off-broadway-west-theatre-companys-the-birthday-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/fear-and-loathing-comes-to-the-english-seaside-in-off-broadway-west-theatre-companys-the-birthday-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and Loathing on the English Coast in THE BIRTHDAY PARTY"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>A dirty joke, a poignant insight, an absurdist yawp, an unexpected reversal, a shocking confession and a stream of ironic badinage erupt one after another\u2014and sometimes all at once. Full of loaded banter, veering from nail-biting confrontation to wildly cathartic caricature, Pinter\u2019s controversial play, The Birthday Party,<\/em>\u00a0remains a text of unique and overwhelming power. Its unique and overwhelming power lies in this rapid oscillation; this sudden shift of mood; the abrupt embrace of tranquility and nonsense, the pleasant familiarity of cliche and the horror of senseless brutality. \u201cDark comedy\u201d does not even begin to describe it.<\/p>\n

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Stanley (Adam Simpson) and Meg (Celia Maurice)<\/p><\/div>\n

Off Broadway West Theatre Company\u2019s performance of The Birthday Party<\/em> summons this grimly ridiculous and genuinely terrifying world, a world cleverly disguised as a routine morning at a rundown boarding house in the least fashionable quarter of an English seaside town in the 1950\u2019s, where we find British-born Graham Cowley, as Petey, munching his cornflakes in a fog, aloof.<\/p>\n

Petey\u2019s wife, Meg, dotes on him with unwelcome playfulness. As Meg, Celia Maurice embodies dotty sentimentality and loneliness. Ms. Maurice trained at Stanford University, with the A.C.T. Young Conservatory. In New York, she worked at the Lincoln Center with the New York City Opera, and The Birthday Party<\/em> marks her debut performance with OBWTC. In this, she is magnetic: One moment, Meg is soaring away on a fantasy of escape, and, in the next, she is a dowdy husk of a human being. Humdrum chit-chat suddenly becomes brisk and riveting. This ordinary breakfast conversation, like one of our own, is now electrified\u2014an everyday relationship catastrophically, irrationally infused with epic power struggles, violent upheavals, and dizzying bouts of confusion and regret.<\/p>\n

At the breakfast table, still wearing his dressing gown and pajamas, the insanely demanding lodger, Stanley (Adam Simpson), heaps contempt on Meg. Later, the next-door neighbor, Lulu (played with smoldering sultriness by Jessica Lea Risco), asks Stanley, \u201cYou want to go for a walk?\u201d
\n\u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re a bit of a wash-out,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Words are weapons, and, in time, they rip Stanley apart. The main drama here is his complete disintegration, from the youthful piano-playing phenom to the older and bitterly obscure lodger to\u2026 Something else entirely, something that must be seen to be believed.<\/p>\n

Into this world drop the dapper Goldberg, and his Irish henchman, McCann. With their double-breasted suits, their black broad-brimmed hats, and smooth urban cynicism, McCann and Goldberg might as well be Martians. Keith Burkland, an OBWTC veteran, plays Goldberg. His sidekick, McCann, is played by James Centofanti, who appeared alongside Mr. Burkland last year in OBWTC\u2019s Betrayal\u2014another Pinter play. In this performance, their powerful chemistry crackles mercilessly, and spits sparks.
\nWith oily, machine-like relentlessness, they advance on Stanley\u2014and drive him to madness. McCann rips up a newspaper meticulously. For no apparent purpose. With a dead-eyed gaze, McCann regards Stanley coolly. He takes in this bizarre, overgrown boy, and says, \u201cYou\u2019re in a bad state man.\u201d Lulu is nothing but a \u201cbig, bouncy girl\u201d to Goldberg. Goldberg is, himself, a London Jew, and a preachy raconteur (\u201cYou\u2019ve always been a true Christian to me,\u201d says McCann). Their neatly choreographed interrogations make a picture of menace.<\/p>\n

Meg has no idea she is being ridiculed by Goldberg. Stanley\u2019s face contorts in vexation and fury. He paces erratically, and beats his birthday drum like a maniac. The audience wonders: Is it OK to laugh at this? At the climax, in a scene like the cartoon version of the nightmare of a paranoiac, a game of \u201cblind man\u2019s bluff\u201d unleashes a sinister, grasping golem; a stupid bacchanal spirals into oblivion with all the desolation of a drunken black-out; and Goldberg and McCann, once dapper sharks, are reduced to mere lecherous buffoons. Stanley is reduced to twitchy catatonia. Meg and Lulu are each reduced to a \u201cwalk of shame\u201d. And Petey suffers more than he ever knew that he could suffer.<\/p>\n

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Goldberg (Keith Burkland) at center, with his henchman, McCann (James Centofanti)<\/p><\/div>\n

A richly evocative sea-worn set\u2014scarves and jackets and curtains pegged up like damp rags\u2014renders an off-beat and dilapidated \u201cboutique hotel\u201d from the Fawlty Towers era. Anglophile fans of television shows like Doc Martin and QI will love the wittily suggestive back-and-forth repartee.<\/p>\n

OBWTC\u2019s The Birthday Party<\/em>\u00a0plays at San Francisco’s “The Phoenix Theatre” at 414 Mason St. (6th floor) until June 27th, 2015, with performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm, as well as a pair of Sunday matinees (at 3pm) on May 31st and June 14. The Birthday Party<\/em>\u00a0is an all-out assault \u2014 a true tour de force<\/em> \u2014 and it is not to be missed!<\/p>\n

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A dirty joke, a poignant insight, an absurdist yawp, an unexpected reversal, a shocking confession and a stream of ironic badinage erupt one after another\u2014and sometimes all at once. Full…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"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":[601],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-test-review"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"