REVIEWS ...
Wednesday, November 24, 1999
CLOSER: SEXY, UNSETTLING
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
cdolen@herald.com
You're young, restless and driven by throbbing hormones. You think that theater, like the production of The Sound of Music they did at your high school, holds nothing for you.
Think again. Patrick Marber's hot, sexy, disturbing and X-rated Closer has just opened at GableStage, and if you see smoke billowing from the little theater space near the tennis courts at the stately Biltmore Hotel in staid Coral Gables, that would be evidence of the scorching drama that is startling, shocking and provoking audiences from the theater's wide-yet-intimate stage.
Winner of the 1997 Olivier Award as London's best play before becoming a hit on Broadway last season despite some critics' reservations, Closer is about sex and longing in the 1990s. Marber explores destructiveness, lust, heartbreak and love - requited and frustrated - employing language that can range from the sweet and poetic to myriad permutations of every four-letter word in the book. It's an adults-only piece, inappropriate for anyone likely to be offended by raw language and partial nudity. Consider yourself warned. GableStage Artistic Director Joseph Adler has staged the play carefully, helping his strong quartet of actors find the balance between British reserve and roiling desire. Perhaps because of its carefully calibrated tone, perhaps because of the far greater intimacy GableStage affords, this local production seems to serve Marber better than its big, chilly Broadway predecessor.
Spanning more than four years, Closer traces the couplings and betrayals of two men and two women in partner-swapping that is not at all friendly. Alice (Jen Ryan) is a young, cheery, lost Cyndi Lauperish eccentric who keeps body and soul together - barely - by stripping, and Dan (Paul Tei) is a would-be novelist who pays for his tuna sandwiches by writing newspaper obituaries. Larry (Bob Rogerson) is a dermatologist with a yen for the kind of skin Alice displays, while Anna (Sandra Ives) is a cool photographer who seems to handle sexual treachery as adeptly as she does a camera.
The look and sound of Closer are as pitch-perfect as its acting, from Lyle Baskin's stark set to Jeff Quinn's subtle lighting; from Daniela Schwimmer's gray-dominant and character-revealing costumes to M. Tony Reimer's sound/music design.
Closer is about compulsions: how driven we are to achieve intimacy, how relentless we are in undermining it. It's not a masterpiece, but it comes as close as any script to limning the mood of men and women at the end of the century.
Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater critic.
Sex drama Closer leaves the actors and audience all feeling the heat.
By Jack Zink, Sun-Sentinel Theater Writer
Posted Nov. 22, 1999
The GableStage is painted black for the sex drama Closer, as if it were a cast-iron griddle for four actors to sizzle like strips of bacon. Sizzle they do, and the heat radiates from Patrick Marber's unvarnished play about people using people.
In the small Coral Gables theater at the Biltmore Hotel, Closer is so very much closer to the audience than it was on Broadway or in London that the temperature rises steadily throughout the room, not just on the stage.
Marber's tale is so heavily encrusted with modern urban stage noir, festooned with lust and sour with the taste of promising relationships gone bad, that it's possible to miss the morality play tucked inside.
Closer is not explicit in the way of an X-rated movie, although an extended scene takes place in a strip club with a topless dancer.
The characters mostly indulge in their fantasies offstage and between scenes, but they discuss their sex lives in detail with one another and on the Internet, with the audience privy to their every word, spoken or typed.
While undeniably raw, Closer is never explosive. That's because Marber and GableStage director Joe Adler are exploring the four characters' individual passions, never allowing the quartet enough time together to cause an uncontrollable reaction and instant mutual destruction. Its corrosiveness works over time to accomplish the same thing.
The two men are vain and banal, one merely selfish and the other an amoral social pariah.
The two women have streaks of sincerity, with the stripper Alice (Jen Ryan) seemingly the most artificial of the four, exhibiting the most genuine emotion. Though practiced in the art of sexual deception, she's willing to be blinded by love.
That eagerness sets her up for betrayal by newspaperman Dan (Paul Tei), a manipulative stud who thrills in sexual conquest. He gets Alice's commitment early, then moves on to Anna (Sandra Ives), a more mature photographer. In doing so, he breaks up the marriage he helped create between Anna and successful doctor Larry (Bob Rogerson).
With the story's two relationships now in disarray, Marber rearranges them not once, but several times. Partners are swapped for pity and for revenge, as the situations dictate. When the emotional smoke clears, everyone's sadder but no one appears much the wiser.
Lyle Baskin's minimalist settings, with their semi-abstract, simple graphics, focus the attention on the action, which is further enhanced by Jeff Quinn's lighting and M. Tony Reimer's sound designs. Daniela Schwimmer's costumes tell all, from stripper Alice's see-through metallic blouse to con man Dan's scruffy business suits.
Intense and sexually charged, Closer is a gripping story, though not necessarily a great one. Its point of view is incomplete, as fragile as it is contemporary.
Yet Marber's ability to verbally confront his characters' sexuality, and explore beyond their apparent hedonism to at least suggest the vestige of a moral tap root, makes Closer an arresting snapshot worth turning to again and again.
Director Adler makes fine adjustments to tune the show to his splendid, aggressive cast and adds a few touches that actually raise the pressure in the intimate, 135-seat playhouse.
Jack Zink can be reached at jzink@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4706.
