Monday, August 7, 2000
Funny, topical 'Popcorn' gigs Hollywood
Like its concession-stand namesake, Ben Elton's Popcorn sizzles, heats up
and explodes. The British novelist-playwright takes on two hot topics, movie
violence and lack of personal responsibility -- in a way that is both wildly
raw and funny, sometimes simultaneously.
Winner of the Olivier Award as England's best comedy of 1998 and newly
opened at GableStage in Coral Gables, Popcorn is the quintessence of what
theatergoers have come to expect from Joseph Adler during his two impressive
seasons as the intimate playhouse's artistic director: edgy theater that is
beautifully cast, provocatively directed and impeccably designed.
As in William Mastrosimone's darker play, Like Totally Weird, Popcorn
explores the deadly consequences when "fans" of a violent, controversial
filmmaker come to call. The difference is that Elton's satirical approach
lets us laugh at the pretentions of Hollywood types while Adler and company
build tension and engage in sudden jabs of violence that will make you
squirm. (Scrap that pointless intermission, though. Why ratchet up the
pressure then let the audience off the hook?)
In Popcorn, Bruce Delamitri (Bob Rogerson) is a successful and prickly
director whose violent film, Ordinary Americans, is up for an Oscar. Bruce
is convinced he won't win, in part because his movie -- which depicts
precisely 57 murders -- has inspired a real-life killing spree by a pair of
white-trash lovers dubbed the Mall Murderers by the media, which has taken
Delamitri to task for "creating" the monsters.
Shades of Oliver Stone and Natural Born Killers.
Bruce's producer, Karl (Ken Clement), is giving him plenty of advice that he
doesn't want to hear. The director's pretty, spoiled teenage daughter Velvet
(Jennifer Lehr) expresses her faith in Daddy whenever she can penetrate his
self-absorption, which isn't often. And his soon-to-be-ex-wife Farrah
(Sandra Ives) complains pretty much incessantly.
Bruce, however, gets three surprises on Oscar night: He wins (and makes a
hilariously inept acceptance speech); he picks up actress-centerfold Brooke
Daniels (Tracey Barrow), who manages to both seduce and rattle him; and he
discovers that the infamous Mall Murderers, bottle-blond Wayne (Paul Tei,
whose lusty performance sparks this well-acted production) and skinny Scout
(Claire Tyler), have been doing something other than sleeping in his bed.
Played out on Rich Simone's sleek set, with its faux Mondrian and Warhol
paintings and monitors that allow for both film clips and a crucial live
video feed, Popcorn is full of trenchant observations about Hollywood,
movies, violence, family, marriage, sex, the media, class and personal
responsibility.
Its grinning nastiness, its audaciousness will make you feel and think,
laugh and recoil.
Popcorn the snack is airy, forgettable; Popcorn the play is anything but
that.
Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater critic.
August 9, 2000
Surreal killers
Popcorn snaps and crackles with kernels of profanity, profundity and vicious wit.
By Bill Hirschman, Sun-Sentinel Staff Writer
Art imitates life imitating art: Serial murderers akin to the demented
hayseed couple from Natural Born Killers pause in their deadly rampage to
invade the home of their cultural icon, an Oscar-winning movie director
modeled after Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarrantino
Will these impulse killers slay him, pay homage or both?
Easily one of the ink-blackest comedies ever, GableStage's stunning Popcorn
satirizes the destructive symbiosis among real-life violence, the
entertainment industry, the news media and our own dark appetites. In the
world according to Popcorn, we are all complicit in spotlighting vampires,
who feed off that very light.
Punctuated with sex play, foul language and sudden death, Popcorn is not
remotely everyone's fare, but it may be one of the best plays in South
Florida this season.
Between passionate gropings, self-described trailer trash Wayne and Scout
deny that Bruce Delamitri's films inspired their current spree as "The Mall
Murderers."
But Ben Elton's viciously funny script argues that slasher movies and
incessant if-it-bleeds-it-leads news reports implicitly condone violence as
a path to success, if you define success as your 15 minutes of fame.
Wayne may be no rocket scientist, but his psychotic simplicity clearly sees
the hypocrisy in society's avowed distaste for violence, given the success
of Delamitri's films.
"We want an excuse. We want somebody else to take the blame," Wayne says,
revving into overdrive for a sociological rant. Citing Lorena Bobbitt, the
police officers who beat Rodney King and, of course, O.J., Wayne declares,
"Today you can be guilty and still be innocent. Nobody gets blamed for
anything in this county. So why should we take the rap?"
There aren't any particularly new concepts here, but Elton crystallizes the
debate with galvanizing clarity and mordant humor.
His play is well-served by a uniformly fine ensemble, including one
undeniable breakout in Paul Tei's Wayne. He's a punk-haired,
malaprop-plagued maniac whose roulette-wheel mind might pause to utter an
aphorism ("Being a killer is a career option - like dentistry"), or fire off
one of the large-caliber cannons he casually totes around like a cellphone.
Arguing Elton's Swiftian modest proposals, Tei provides the racing engine to
this juggernaut of a play, under the sure pacing and inventive direction of
Joseph Adler.
Bob Rogerson turns in yet another solid performance as the filmmaker who
finds he is more conventional than he thought when faced with the reality of
his fiction. Rogerson could patent that pole-axed, pained expression he
wears most of the evening.
Claire Tyler is wonderful as the sweet-faced madwoman who, when told her
boyfriend is a murdering psychopath, responds straightforwardly, "But you
don't know his nice side." Also fine are Tracey Barrow, who invests more
intelligence than expected into a B-actress best known for her Playboy
centerfold, and Jennifer Lehr as Bruce's far-too-wise Valley Girl daughter.
Costumer Ellis Tillman provides stylish California chic (Bruce dresses in
all beige, not black), and Rich Simone adorns the LaLa Land living-room set
with such absurd art as a Warhol-like four-panel portrait of Bruce.
The only shortcoming is, ironically enough, the violence. We are so
accustomed to realistic mayhem on screen that stage violence seems fake,
which, of course, it is. It's difficult to suspend disbelief when a shot
victim falls down like a kid playing cowboys and Indians. That undercuts the
pervasive menace necessary to keep the audience as well as the hostages
off-balance and anxious.
But by the final fade-out, violence has come home to roost like a flock of
vultures, although the audience will spend the rest of the night arguing
exactly who are the predators and who are the carrion. |
