![]() Rabe's script, though innovative, is flawed. The women do well in the go-go dances, as they bump and grind chairs on stage to the tune of some mean music their opportunities to do so are unfortunately limited. Her porcelain face betrays just the right amount of suffering. Bina Martin clomps convincingly through her role as tragi-comic Sally. Barrera has great sexual energy as Susan, and though she garbles some lines at the microphone, her delivery is well targeted. The supporting actresses all give strong performances. He is almost uniformly unbelievable, his delivery heavy handed and poorly timed, especially in scenes with Forbes alone. Spraggins is lost and lifeless in this subtle and demanding role. The male character with the least direction is Harold. He displays marvelous range in the role making split-second shifts from solicitousness to viciousness. Tom Hopkins is an engaging and comic as Guy, Chrissy's gay neighbor. He avoids the easy and flat characterization, and his fits of passion are full and believable. Hatch has a talent for movements and mannerism that is wonderfully showcased here. Hatch has a more manageable role as Al, a selfish and insecure racist. In the end, Forbes has won the audience's pity rather than affection. The delivery of earlier lines is impeded by an inexplicable and transient country-girl twang. She gives a striking performance in her final confrontation scene with her husband Al (Anthony Koronto Hatch), and it is unfortunate that the rest of her time on stage could not have been as powerful. But he keeps Chrissy too busy with some ridiculous subplots the script calls for more emotional acrobatics that even an actress of Forbes' considerable presence can successfully perform. With acute psychological insight, Rabe drew Crissy as a confused child-woman. Rabe wrote the play largely in short takes, and the quick scenes fail to make the characters any more accessible or sympathetic.įorbes, cast in the lead role, suffers the most under this burden. The play has been called compassionate by some, but it is really a cold-blooded indictment of gender relationships and the modern world. for their part, are either vengeful, despondent or schizophrenic. The male characters alternate between using, abusing and claiming ownership of the women. The characters are almost universally unsavory and filty-mouthed. Even the grittiest of theater-goers will begin cringing around the fiftieth mention of the word "nigger." Racism is a trifle too recurrent a theme here. Other, equally disturbing undercurrents exist in the play. ![]() We watch Chrissy reject a mother who attempted to abort her and favor a father responsible for her innumerable personal and sexual problems. The suspense is not unbearble the slow, sure and gruesome arrival at it is. The scene hints strongly enough at the incestuous relationship between the two that its eventual revelation is no revelation at all. ![]() He also tells Chrissy that she will make love often in her new apartment-with blond boys, Black boys and hot-blooded Spaniards, he says. Harold, decidedly unpaternal and sleazy, elaborates on his recent prostrate problems. There is an opening scene in which Chrissy (China Forbes) and her father, Harold (Blake Spraggins), are dancing close. The surrealistically awful tale focuses on go-go girl Chrissy's growing instability, and the insensitive cretins there to witness it.įrom the beginning, nothing in this play seems kosher. The set remarkably resembles a seedy lounge it is the only truly recognizable aspect of the production. The considerable action unfolds on the company's marvelous set resplendant with giant records, neon beer signs, and flashing lights. Most of the credit has to go to the text, by award-winning playwright David Rabe. It is instead a black and brutal exploration of one woman's sexual and psychological "underside." The Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theater's production of the work is not good theater in its easiest definition-no one in the audience will leave with a renewed joi de vie, or humming a catchy show tune. Despite its loaded title, In the Boom Boom Room is not a sexy play.
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