Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

All the pieces don’t quite come together in Lascivious Something but there are still many beautiful and brilliant shards to this unique story. Sheila Callaghan unwinds an intricately flawed but bold story about carnal lust.  The story has a deep and dark psychic drives running underneath all the characters and goes far beyond the boundaries of the simple plot. Callaghan blends Greek mythology with the exile of American idealism in a tale of 3 complex creatures.

But first the parameters: it’s 1980 on a craggy mountain in the Greek Isles. August, a young American radical has fled from California and President Reagan’s election to the other side of the world. He’s diverted his political passion into settling down with his vineyard and his new Greek wife, Daphne.  Out of the past arrives Liza: a former girlfriend of August and radical activist. Daphne is a tornado, a spitting, raging, biting scary creature with an insatiable lust for August. Daphne is a Greek Goddess of marble. And August is the psychic Ruins of American idealism. He has a wild, childish streak tinged with increasing disillusionment as the world plunges into the 1980s. It doesn’t take much guessing to know that this is about to turn into a love triangle, with August in the middle and having to choose between a safe future on the mountain with his wife or the American tornado.

But as the story unfolds, everyone’s seedier passions begin to appear. Callaghan interlaces a magical element by getting into the character’s heads and letting them speak in hyper-real outbursts. These scenes are marked by a sound and light cue that gives the feel of a bubble bursting before returning back to the same scene. Now the same scene unfolds with mundane actions that now have a little bit of malice in every look.

Director Daniella Topol finds the right balance between Callaghan’s savagely hungry characters. This is a play that can very easily go off-track. Instead, Topol has shaped a story with an invisible hand. Lascivious’ magic feels natural and, at the same time, surprising.

The acting in this piece deserves special mention because none of the characters are likable and yet they remain completely watchable. Rob Campbell endows the character August with a Christopher Walken lilt that’s gives him a sense of off-beat humor and insanity. Dana Eskelson burns through play as an explosive former lover while Elizabeth Waterson gives Daphne a cruel and cold veneer. Ronete Levenson portrays a young teenage girl working at the vineyard as both humorously drunk and a mean little animal with her own secret appetite.

Marsha Ginsberg designs the mountain set as gray lifeless rocks held together by steel wire. It’s bleak, dry and reflects the fact that we’ve strayed far away from so-called civilization by going to the birthplace of the Western world.

Lascivious isn’t perfect. The play has red herrings, dead ends, and could use some trimming in places. But Callaghan has created an exciting and rich tale of passion.