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Photo by Don Kellogg

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Bingo with the Indians

A new play - written and directed by Adam Rapp at The Flea. It features the BATS - the theater company renowned for good acting and non-payment for said services!

Well - if you were going to like this play - you'd say "edgy, angst ridden and raw". It would certainly be well situated in an off-off Broadway theater - far from a commercial audience! If you took a less appreciative view of the work, you might say "self indulgent, pointless, and gratuitous".

I'm somewhere in between. Certainly the actors put on a fine (if not over the top) portrayal of their characters - who by the way are a band of not-so-mainstream actors from an east village theater company (um.. could it be the Bats themselves?) who take a road trip to a New Hampshire motel to ultimately make a heist at the local Bingo game, frequented mostly by the local Indian tribe. If you think that is odd - throw in a young skinny kid living at the motel with his strange mother, a "first time" gay sexual experience, a gun, a girl with lots of piercings, a huge bag of cocaine a fatal flashlight beating and an otherworldly Indian spirit with a drum.

The story is odd, to say the least. The actors jump in head first and provide a powerful performance. I'm just not so sure that the story makes sense. It's a jumble of drugs, violence, social commentary, and weird people. Maybe it's reality. I'm not sure.