Series B of Screaming Venus's Eve's Apple festival was not, as intended, a showcase for promising talent - with material ranging from fatuous to repulsive, performers were hard-pressed to distinguish themselves. Nor did it do much to "further the female voice" in theatre (part of Screaming Venus's mission): two of the three plays were about hookers.
The program began with Just Jersey, the insipid tale of Delores, an assistant manager at the TJ Maxx in the West Caldwell Plaza shopping center, whose path to self-improvement leads to a new job at an escort service. This 30-minute solo piece had too many scenes, and the blackouts between them were clumsy and obtrusive. Just Jersey included bad voiceover impersonations of Madonna, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, and Jon Bon Jovi, Delores's idols, who counsel her (a working-class Jerseyite worships Springsteen - hardly an original idea).
Writer/performer Jennifer Dee's performing didn't rise above the level of the writing: at the final performance, half the set toppled over toward the end of the play, but Dee showed no professional poise. She appeared to be laughing and shaking her head in disbelief through the remainder of the show, which ensured the audience would make no sense of the outcome of a story that had barely made sense up till then. She apparently forgot to take a bow during the curtain call, smirking and shrugging in the direction of the collapsed set instead. Even the most provincial Manhattanites would feel New Jersey was insulted by this show. (Directed by Janet Amateau.)
Together Again, while not haplessly executed like Just Jersey, was more or less aimless as well. In this piece, a young woman speaks to her deceased father while slogging through her work as an office drone. It was a rambling, generic portrait of grief; there wasn't anything extraordinary about the father-daughter relationship or the circumstances of his death to give the play much impact. Melissa Miles, who also wrote the piece, did have an appealing stage presence, though. (Directed by Danny Asher.)
Completing Series B was Midnight Ruby, a play by John Hanshe that could charitably be called gritty but is really just plain disgusting. Few theatregoing experiences could be more uncomfortable than watching the lone performer in Midnight Ruby, who played a prostitute, re-enact a gangbang while hardcore gangsta rap is blaring. Erin Walls was nothing if not game in the role of Ruby as well as her pimp. The dialogue would make David Mamet and Larry Flynt blush. It is hard to conceive of this disturbing piece being revived, except perhaps in a double feature with movies like Pretty Woman, as an antidote to all those sanitized depictions of prostitution. It is as harsh and vulgar as they are romanticized. (Directed by Jason Hale.)
Surely there are solo shows out there that say something more profound, more original, more moving than "life sucks and then you die."
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Copyright 2002 Adrienne Onofri