LIFE IS LIKE A CARTON OF EGGS;
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO GET
UNTIL YOU CRACK ONE OPEN
How do we cope with the loss of control in a crisis? Imagine two couples (one from Manhattan, the other from Los Angeles) that meet for an idyllic winter vacation in a secluded cabin Upstate New York and instead are faced with an unforeseen and utterly inconvenient power failure. It’s the premise of Eric Bogosian‘s dark comedy Humpty Dumpty, which opened last night at the Chain Theatre for a five-week limited engagement. The reference to the nursery rhyme implies an inevitable fall, an irreversible break—the power isn’t coming back, neither is the cell signal, and their idyllic weekend spirals into something much more sinister.
Marie Dinolan, Gabriel Rysdahl, Kirk Gostkowski, Christina Elise Perry
Kirk Gostkowski, Brandon Hughes
The characters are stereotypical. Max and Nicole, the couple from New York, are the intellectuals. Nicole is a high-powered book editor who needs to be in control of every situation. Christina Elise Perry brings the fragility of Nicole’s carefully curated world to the surface, embodying both Nicole’s need for control and her fear of losing it. Her husband Max, played with astounding authenticity by Kirk Gostkowski, is more relaxed and detached, but his passivity is a form of emotional avoidance. His intellectualism provides him with a sense of superiority that isolates him from reality.
Kirk Gostkowski
The couple from Los Angeles is obviously superficial and frivolous: Troy (Gabriel Rysdahl) is a self-obsessed and insecure screenwriter consumed by two needs, the good life and his career. Spoon, a delightfully sweet Marie Dinolan, is a free-spirited actress whose carefree attitude is in stark contrast to Nicole and Max’s neuroticism. The wild card in the play is Nat (Brandon Hughes), the local rugged caretaker. He is calm, grounded, and resourceful, the opposite of the four self-absorbed characters who are forced to rely on him.
Christina Elise Perry
The dialogue in the play is funny, biting and unrelenting, a characteristic of Bogosian’s matter-of-fact writing, but Ella Jane New‘s direction lacks energy, especially in the second half. Sets by David Henderson, lights by Michael Abrams, costumes by Rafaella Rossi, and sound by Greg Russ serve the script well; they were all realistic, efficient and on point, but I found myself wishing for some sparkle, a scary storm, strange country noises, weird props, more unspoken drama or comedy.
Christina Elise Perry, Gabriel Rysdahl, Marie Dinolan, Kirk Gostkowski
Christina Elise Perry
Bogosian’s play reminds us that we are all prisoners of the electricity grid, part of a web of interconnected systems that supposedly simplify our lives. And yet, if we lose access to these systems we are lost, vulnerable to the whims of nature and circumstance, a reminder that even the best-laid plans can go completely dark. Humpty Dumpty is a mixed carton of eggs, but certainly enjoyable nonetheless.
photo by Matt Wells
Humpty Dumpty
Chain Theater, 312 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor
Wed-Sat at 7; Sat & Sun at 2
110 minutes, with intermission
for tickets ($35), visit Chain Theater
