BLOOD AND RANCH DRESSING
In December of 2020, the world was still in the grip of COVID-19’s unpredictable terror. Moderna and Pfizer had just released their vaccines, but supply was scarce and available only to a few high-risk groups. Physical distancing, masking, and sanitizing were all top of mind, as were, shall we say, “competing” ideas about the virus itself and how to live with it, sensationally exclaimed everywhere you looked. At this time, a bar in New York City, Mac’s Public House, fed up with COVID health measures, declared itself an Autonomous Zone, in the vein of the sovereign citizen movement, in order to skirt the law. Oh, and Donald Trump was still President. This is the setting of John Lavelle’s new play The Very Best People, the world premiere of which opened on Saturday by IAMA Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre.
Jak (Bryan Langlitz), Brian Anthony (Adrián González), and Joey (James Luster)
The bar here is not “Mac’s” but “Mick’s”, a.k.a. Angelina’s Irish Pub on Staten Island’s South Shore. It’s the kind of bar that hangs up photos of Ronald Reagan and Trump, a giant thin blue line flag, and plays conservative cable news all day. Today is special. Owners Jak and Joey have been running a crowdfunding campaign for their friend, Chris, a former US Marine, who had been recently shot.
Jak (Bryan Langlitz) and Joey (James Luster)
Bryan Langlitz plays Jak, a cuddly bear of a man in the vein of Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners. James Luster plays his schlubby business partner, Joey. Likeable and charming enough, they pal around alone in their bar, playfully throwing risqué and racial banter with the closeness that comes from being good friends. It soon becomes clear that Jak is the dominant of the two, reinforced by Joey’s weird habit of starting sentences with, “Fuck me in the ass!” Lavelle’s writing is often witty and memorably funny, and Langlitz and Luster’s engaging performances are fun to watch, but the character-building here goes for a while; I got antsy wondering when the plot was going to happen.
Joey (James Luster) and Jak (Bryan Langlitz)
Left alone in the bar, Joey watches Red News, currently broadcasting a Megyn Kelly-style commentator, played by Margaux Susi, giving a fierce and straight-faced performance while spouting slightly deranged commentary (Ms. Susi will play several characters with dexterous interchangeability). The Red News pundit then appears as a figment from behind the bar, and encourages Joey to masturbate to a video of soldiers coming home to puppies. It’s an amusing, if unchallenging, exploration of how conservative news uses sex, patriotism, and cuteness to brainwash people.
Joey (James Luster), Brian Anthony (Adrián González), and Andria Kozica (Fanny)
Before he can clean up, Fanny (Andria Kozica), Jak’s half-sister who is a nurse in a COVID-overwhelmed hospital, enters with her heartthrob and fiancée, Brian (hunky Adrián González), recently released from prison. Fanny knows the truth about COVID and is disgusted by the lies that Red News spews; she doesn’t put up with Jak and Joey’s red-state skepticism, so the first chance she gets, she changes the channel from Red News (a thinly-veiled Fox News) to Blue News (likewise, MSNBC). It soon becomes clear that she is the brains of the group.
Brian Anthony (Adrián González) and Andria Kozica (Fanny)
The plot slowly drips open: Brian is acting funny, leading Fanny to deduce that the men are up to no good; there are oblique references to “next month” (Jan. 6); Fanny’s last name is Gambino (that Gambino? It wasn’t clear); Joey is a cop who lost his shield; and there is some news story (video by Zander Eckhouse) that led to Chris losing his badge and becoming a discredited NYPD detective. The exposition is stretched out far longer than it needed to be.
Sandra Houghton (Margaux Susi) and Joey (James Luster)
Joey is left alone again after Fanny leaves, this time hiding the remote after she changes the channel back to Blue News. Blue’s commentator recalls Rachel Maddow, also played by Susi, spouting ideas equally deranged as those on Red News. Here is where the play finally gets interesting, presenting the Blue version of the earlier scene. Whereas Red News indoctrinates with positive, erotic, and soft feelings, Blue stokes rage. Again, the host encourages Joey to masturbate, but this time, to video feed of Black Lives Matter riots. She takes it a step further, convincing him that he’s a wolf, an alpha male. Lavelle implies here that the left creates its enemy, but this idea is barely touched upon. The Blue scene felt significantly shorter than the Red scene. So far, it’s intriguing but somewhat bemusing.
Joey (James Luster) and Lara Amanda (Margaux Susi)
There are several trigger warnings online and on site, which I always avoid. However, we are told at intermission there is going to be a splash zone; free ponchos were handed out to viewers to protect against spraying stage blood (there were still some droplets dried hard on a riser from a previous performance). Gee, thanks for the spoiler. Imagine all those great plays you’ve seen that have shocking displays of graphic violence. Part of their power comes from the shock, doesn’t it? I came to The Very Best People completely ignorant. (“Oh, it’s about Donald Trump,” I thought. Spoiler: it’s not.) After getting this warning, I was blasé and thinking that I already saw this play — one with red state/blue state animosities and a shocking display of violence — written by Lynn Nottage, who won a Pulitzer for Sweat. In short, broad similarities to a tighter play.
Joey (James Luster), and Jak (Bryan Langlitz),
Brian Anthony (Adrián González) and Patrick Michaels (Seth Leighton Hale)
Anyway, armed with ponchos, a party atmosphere developed as people got excited for the oncoming splatter fest. Smiles all around. Poncho-donned people taking selfies. Is this the kind of reaction you want when dealing with serious ideas? The second half began to the accompaniment of crinkling ponchos, and a videographer who decided to hover his camera, with its bright LCD screen right next to my head, distracting me from seeing the first spurt of violence, delivered by (presumably) a nimble Seth Leighton Hale, who plays Patrick, a news reporter now held captive by the trio of men.
Brian Anthony (Adrián González) and Patrick Michaels (Seth Leighton Hale)
Still, I was sitting in the back row, high and far enough away to stay dry, or so I thought. This splashing was not the byproduct of an awesome effects scene, but deliberately squirting at the audience, and directly onto my corduroys. Yes, it washes out we’re told. But instead of thinking about the play, I’m now thinking about the blood, enough to make Hamlet look like child’s play.
Joey (James Luster) and Maureen (Margaux Susi)
This bloody centerpiece is where the play’s biggest weakness is most clear. The tone in the first half, was, overall, serious, if uncommitted. In the second half, the tone whipsaws all over the place — farce, woman-in-peril, satire, tragedy, body horror, etc. The scattered funny lines, a strength earlier, now get run into the ground while also removing the grimness from the kidnapping.
Fanny (Andria Kozica) and Jak (Bryan Langlitz)
Throughout all this, I was reminded of Benjamin Brand’s TASTE, a gory play where two men agree that one would cook and eat the other. In that play, the audience sat in stunned silence, whether in contemplation or disgust. Here, the reaction is excited squeals of titillation (although there are some wonderfully shocking moments). Which would be great if this was a comedy. However, the scene leading into this was a harrowing one where we meet Maureen (also Ms. Susi), the wife of the hospitalized friend. The one that follows, and the conclusion, are heart-wrenching but extended scenes where the women discover and grieve over the carnage.
Jak (Bryan Langlitz)
Malissa Coleman-Reed directs, dutifully following Lavelle’s stylistic lurches from three-camera sitcom through tear-strewn tragedy. The cast gives terrific performances all around, especially Kozica, whose character desperately tried to keep her world together. Christopher Scott Murillo’s set was wonderfully detailed with Nicole Bernardini‘s props, date-specific, and has an exceptionally evocative and lurid effect that hints at the bloodiness of actual crime scenes. It’s a dynamite set, made all the more real with neon signs, and more phantasmagoric with baths of blue lights designed by Benedict Conran. Sound designer Erin Bednarz routed the TV audio above the audience instead of from the bar’s TVs, which was jarring when Susi made her entrances. Intimacy and fight director Celina Lee Surniak’s choreography was sadly less than convincing.
Joey (James Luster) and Jak (Bryan Langlitz)
Throughout all this, I kept wondering, what is Lavelle trying to say? His writing touches on so many timely issues, but drops them almost as soon as they are uttered. At one point, a character says, “It’ll be okay, we’re white!” Normally, that kind of line would be shocking, but it’s immediately followed by a micro-lecture on white privilege, then forgotten.
The one constant is the police. The actions that take place in this play happen because of two incidents committed long ago by corrupt and racist cops. One cop is exposed as the bad apple who spoiled the good cop. This bad cop desires domination and violence, even when sensibly told, “no.” On a stage pooled with blood, characters remaining after the violence realize that, while police ruined their lives, the only thing left to do is call the police. If you still have any doubts as to the ideological leanings of this play, the audience leaves the theater to the soothing sounds of YG’s “Fuck Donald Trump.” With so much potential, great acting, and amazing design, the one thing that sticks about the show is blood. Oh, and that ranch dressing is far superior to bleu cheese when eating chicken wings.
Side note: For this production, IAMA set up what they call a “Respite Room” for those who feel traumatized by events on stage. It’s a “safe space” with “gentle lighting, reading and art materials, blankets, and a comfy couch for you to use to process, decompress […]” I find it insultingly infantilizing. I feel awful for that poor soul offended by blood who has to walk through the stuff to get to the “Respite Room.”
photos by Jeff Lorch
The Very Best People
IAMA Theatre Company
Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave.
Fri , Sat and Mon at 8; Sun at 2
ends on October 27, 2024
for tickets ($29-$45), call 323.380.8843 or visit IAMA