[NEohioPAL] Review of "Brainpeople" at Convergence-Continuum

[Bob Abelman]

Con-Con's 'Brainpeople' offers food for thought

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 10/29/10

 

Like the endangered tiger roast that is consumed at the dinner party from hell in José Rivera's surreal dramedy Brainpeople, the play itself is a bit wild, gamey and only the dark meat is served.

 

In production by Convergence-Continuum in Tremont, Brainpeople takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles under Martial Law, at the intimate apartment of a wealthy young Puerto Rican woman.   It is the anniversary of the death of her parents, who were killed while on safari when she was a little girl.

 

As has been her annual ritual, Mayannah (Laurel Johnson) pays two strangers $20,000 to eat what they are served and to stay through dessert.  Her guests for the evening are the psychotic Rosemary (Kristi Little), Rosemary's many personalities, and Ani (Laura Starnik), who arrives with all of her beat up psychological baggage in tow. 

 

Those familiar with Rivera's work (Each Day Dies With Sleep and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot have both been produced by Convergence-Continuum) will recognize his signature theatricality, poetic language and tendency to have his central characters go on nightmarish journeys in search of something elusive and fundamentally spiritual.

 

In Brainpeople, Mayannah totally embraces the adage "you are what you eat" and believes that, by eating a tiger born from the one that ate her family, her guests will resurrect the spirits of her parents.  The dinner party is a last supper of sorts, with our host offering up tiger meat and rum in the place of bread/body and wine/blood.

 

Rosemary and Ani are also on a journey, in that they are looking for an escape from their turbulent and painful lives. They arrive at the dinner party thinking the $20,000 will be the cure but learn that it is merely the lure. 

 

This is a bold and daring piece of theater, which is director Clyde Simon's forte and Convergence-Continuum's milieu.  The play demands bold staging, which is amply supplied by Cory Molner's mood shifting lighting design, sade wolfkitten's complementary background music, and Simon's candle-encircled and crucifix-encrusted set.

 

This play also requires daring performances from the three actresses in order to sustain its eerie ambiance and wonderfully disturbing imagery.  This is in more limited supply.

 

Everyone in the cast is good and brings Rivera's world to life, but they are not completely honed in on what makes their respective characters click.  Dispositions shift with little rhyme or reason (as do accents) during the course of the performance, which makes it tough to get thoroughly sucked into the psychological vortex created by the playwright.

 

Kristi Little, as Rosemary, offsets this shortcoming by taking genuine risks throughout the evening.  She pushes the creative envelope as each of her character's distinctive personalities (the Brainpeople referred to in the title) invite themselves to dinner, and each of her choices is intriguing.  Johnson and Starnik let their risk-taking opportunities, of which there are many, slip by.    

 

This is a very interesting play and an entertaining trick and treat for the Halloween season.  It offers food for thought served up medium well.

 

The one-act Brainpeople continues through November 13 at Convergence-Continuum's The Liminis Theater in Tremont.  For tickets, which range from $12 to $15, call 216-687-0074 or visit www.convergence-continuum.org.
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