Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

In "Badge," the second play from performer Matthew Schneck, Greg McFadden plays Roy, a cheery sort in his late-twenties who has somehow managed to stay in the Boy Scouts of America troupe. McFadden addresses the audience at certain points with actual Boy Scouts dogma, delivered with a desperate sort of strenuousness, as if it was a security blanket. Towards the end of the play, which goes on far longer than it should, we do start to get a glimpse of Roy's sadness and its causes; there is even a patch or two of fine, sensitive writing. McFadden does seem like a very young boy who has aged and even decayed without becoming a man.

But anything "Badge" might want to be about is buried under piles of character contrivances, most of which appear to be aiming for a comic effect—there's even some door-slamming farce towards the end, mixed in with the honest pathos. Tara Falk pushes hard and fast as Jessica, a dangerous woman who claims to have two vaginas and definitely has a propensity for theft and homicide. Darrell James does what he can with two roles, a scoutmaster and an extremely improbable Alabama law enforcer. And Glynis Bell shreds scenery as an eccentric rich woman dressed all in white. All three always seem on the verge of being funny, but their material doesn't support them. A revelation at the end of the play doesn't seem true to what we have just seen: it seems more like an abdication of responsibility on the part of the playwright. An unusually rich sound design by Stephen Kunken keeps things moving, but its rough going to find either theme, character or point in this production.