Again, this is mainly an opportunity to showcase the playwright/actor’s chameleon charm, and Caris leaps in as deeply as Chao, coming up to splash about even more wildly. There’s also a story arc, not just a cute capper. Great fun.
YOUNG LOVERS: O’Neill and Harrison in In Spite of the Devil. |
In Spite Of The Devil [Aug 1 8 pm + Aug 2 1 pm]
Young love is difficult in the best of times, but never more so than in the sort of bind described in Andy Bragen’s In Spite of the Devil, directed by Bragen and Ken Prestininzi. Not only is parental guilt-tripping a voice in the head of 20-year-old Buddy Starlight (Patrick Harrison), it’s a daily face-to-face confrontation in the guise of love.For a guy who has never had a girlfriend, Buddy is pretty adept at glibly picking up pretty 17-year-old Lisa Martinez (Molly O’Neill) in a park. He pretends to be able to identify the ingredients in her sandwich by smell from a bench-length away. We and she, however, know that Buddy is not the run-of-the-mill smooth operator when she sings and thrashes to the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” and, impressed, he says, “It bops.”
Now apparently his legal name, Starlight was the stage name of his father, Frank (Mark Cohen), back in the days of crooners, when he used to sing in nightclubs. Frank is out of work and a semi-invalid, probably by his own lazy design. He relies on his son not only for rent money and cigarettes but also for more affection than normal offspring are designed to supply. He used to be mean, Buddy says to Lisa, but he calmed down after he drove off Buddy’s mother. But when angry, Frank is still capable of telling Buddy that he is so ugly and stupid that no girl could really like him.
Unfortunately, this story wanders around in a lot of familiar — sometimes downright trite — directions that never do get fully explored. There are the beginnings of several plays here.
The actors do good jobs with what they’re given. As extreme as Frank is drawn, Cohen rounds out with knowing whimsy what could be a cardboard character. Similarly, Harrison maintains a convincing tension with Buddy as he is whipsawed emotionally. O’Neill plays Lisa as a rollicking free spirit who likes attention and knows how to get it, while still keeping plausible her admission that boyfriends always drop her sooner or later, to “update to a newer model — one with less dents.” Craig Wesley Divino supplies a necessary surliness to George, her uncaring boyfriend who goes out of his way to give Buddy a hard time.
Nevertheless, as a glimpse of what could have been, every once in a while In Spite of the Devil strikes a note that’s refreshingly its own; the “It bops” remark establishes a scene-worth of information about that bittersweet parental relationship. If only this were haiku instead of drama.
