Thursday, January 28, 2010
Uncategorized Mindgame's flaws put Onstage Atlanta in straightjacket
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 9:27 PM
If you’re the kind of theater-goer who loves a good mystery and likes to deduce whodunit, I strongly advise you not to open the program of Mindgame at Onstage Atlanta. If you’ve seen such stage thrillers as Sleuth and its imitators, you can pretty much figure out all of Mindgame’s twists within about 30 minutes if you know the size of the cast and the length of the play. Mindgame has more problems than simply being too easy to figure out, though.
The play depicts True Crime writer Mark Styler (Charlie Miller) on a visit to a hospital for the criminally insane in rural England. He hopes to arrange an interview with “Easterman,” England’s most notorious mass murderer, but the hospital director, Dr. Farquar (Darrell Wofford), proves uncooperative, claiming to have never heard of Styler, despite their scheduled appointment. In their conversation, Styler explains his fascination with serial killers, especially Easterman, who attains a larger-than-life mystique. His stay in Farquar’s office becomes increasingly strange, from the out-of-nowhere sirens and bursts of amplified Muzak intercoms to the presence of a decorative skeleton in the office of a psychiatrist.
While director Ken Russell seems to have treated Mindgame’s Broadway debut (starring Keith Carradine) as pitch-black comedy, Onstage Atlanta’s production, directed by Barry N. West, plays it more straight, to a point. Rather than rein in the actors to build up a gradual sense of dread, West allows some of the actors to hit hammy heights at the first opportunity. (I won’t single anyone out, lest I give too much away.) Going over the top too soon leaves Mindgame with little to build on.
At best, Mindgame tweaks our situational assumptions of madness and sanity: if you see one man wearing a straight jacket, and one without, who would you guess is the crazy one? The play’s minor hallucinatory details prove to be some of its wittiest moments. It doesn’t help that Horowitz’s script drops such conspicuous references to some of the finest serial killer films ever made, notably Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, which would invite unflattering comparisons to any production.
In 2003, Onstage Atlanta produced a promising world premiere, Ariadne’s Thread by local playwright Marki Shalloe, that had a similar format involving an imprisoned killer. While Mindgame rehashes ideas about serial killers that you've seen in dozens of movies and TV shows, Ariadne’s Thread had an unusual setting – an asylum in New York circa 1911 – and demonstrated a mastery of mood. (Kristin Seymour’s sinister prisoner, for instance, kept her back to the hapless hero and the audience, building suspense until she finally faced him and us. I still get chills thinking about it.) Good stage thrillers are hard to find, but Mindgame falls short of Onstage Atlanta’s own production of a script dug up in our own backyard.
Mindgame. Through Feb. 6. Onstage Atlanta, 2597 North Decatur Rd. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $20-23. 404-897-1802. www.onstageatlanta.org.
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