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Open: 03/09/2012- Close: 03/25/2012
The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis Of Pathos Reviewed for TheaterOnline.com By: Andi Stover
 The Road to Collaboration Town is Paved by Good Intentions In the program for his latest play, which opened at the New Ohio Theatre, playwright Geoffrey Decas O'Donnell enumerates the various literary figures who have influenced his work, The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis of Pathos, The Post-Post Apocalytptical Allegory of Mother LaMadre and Her Son Golden Calf OR: Zombies Will EAT Your Brain! AN EPICTRAGIDRAMEDY, and the list is long and mighty: "Bertolt Brecht, Charles Mee, Sarah Kane, Dr. Faustus by Marlowe, Strindberg, William Shakespeare, Jose Rivera, Agamemnon..." and so it continues on and on, including Star Wars and Robert Wilson. There is nothing remarkable about a writer who is influenced by disparate sources, but in Mr. O'Donnell's case this lengthy parade of names provides insight to how The Deepest Play Ever, which premiered at the New York Fringe Festival in 2006, came to be the puzzling patchwork of words and images that it is. It's as if he simply took bits and pieces of plays and movies that he liked and pasted them together into one sprawling work without much concern for how the borrowed moments connect to each other.
 Which is not to say that this production, directed by Lee Sunday Evans and Jordan Seavey, is not without merits. It is visually arresting, with imaginative props and detailed costumes that evoke the post-apocalyptic world of the play. Set, puppet and props designer Deb O creates a multi-functional set that morphs and changes as the ensemble moves through the play. Cleverly using ordinary objects in unexpected ways, Deb O fosters moments of surprise throughout. Evans and Seavey effectively stage the sizable ensemble giving the play a sense of fluidity, as successive characters, scenes and musical numbers flow into one another with rapidity. Songs by composer Michael Wells please, and odd ball lyrics by Michael Wells and Jordan Seavey account for some fun, amusing tunes, such as the highlight of the evening: Emily Watson lamenting about the lack of happiness in the post-post-apocalyptic world. Watson's vibrant performance and Wells upbeat musical style compliment each other well and deliver a satisfyingly ironic moment of musical theater. Irony, or perhaps parody, seems to be the target The Deepest Play Ever aims at, but sadly misses, due mainly to an overwrought plot line that fails to connect moment to moment. New characters, new motives, new motifs are introduced with almost each successive scene, so much so that it is hard to tell what exactly the story is about. A narrator (Time), played by Phillip Taratula, does more to confuse than to clarify, as he comments more about the mechanics of playmaking, then the action of the one at hand. As far as I could tell, the story is about Mother LaMadre and her children, Golden Calf, Kit Kat and librarian(“) Swiss Cheese as they roam the post-apocalyptic terrain in search of books. An obvious nod the Brecht's Mother Courage, these four roll about the stage in an orange cart. Unlike Brecht's tragically pragmatic Mother Courage who loses her children to the war that she profits from, Mother LaMadre, played by Chinasa Ogbuagu, collects books, because we are shouted at, that's her "purpose." No further elaboration is given. She does so in the shadow of an amorphous "empire," which is never explained, except to say it is bad. Then Dalvador Sali, played by playwright O'Donnell, shows up on the scene proclaiming he is in hot pursuit of books too. In one scene he leaves his girlfriend because she traded his beloved First Folio for Alice in Wonderland, and in the next he sells his soul to the devil and then immediately swears to win her back to make her his zombie bride, despite the fact that he just dumped her. Contradictions like this are common in The Deepest Play Ever, right up to the very end. After almost 3 hours of watching Mother La Madre, her choices appear arbitrary and random, and I do not understand what at all motivates her. Characters are undermined at every turn for an instantaneous laugh, but when the chuckles die down it is hard to regain the regard for them the play demands of us as it progresses. This company, Collaboration Town, clearly knows how to make an audience laugh and how to create a visually complex world, but fail to use their apparent skills to compose characters they respect enough to treat with the consideration they demand of their audience. What results is a confounding collection of borrowed allusions callously rendered. The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis of Pathos by Geoffrey Decas O'Donnell Music by Michael Wells Directed by Lee Sunday Evans and Jordan Seavey Choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans Venue: New Ohio Theatre : 154 Christopher Street |
