 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
SNAKEBIT
* Century Theatre, New York City (open-ended run) * Written by David Marshall Grant * Directed by Jace Alexander * Starring David Alan Basche, Jodie Markell, and Geoffrey Nauffts |
|
The simplest description of *Snakebit* makes it sound like an easy, predictable first outing for actor-turned-playwright David Marshall Grant. Three old friends in crisis spend a couple of days together. Social worker Michael (Geoffrey Nauffts) just broke up with his closety DJ boyfriend, the teenage girl who’s his favorite client is in the hospital recovering from a beating, and he has to move out of his two-bedroom bungalow in L.A. because he can’t afford the rent. His childhood best friend Jonathan (David Alan Basche) is a virtuosically self-involved actor who’s up for a starring role in an action picture called *Mortal Fusion* about lesbians with guns. And Jonathan’s wife Jenifer is a nervous wreck, partly because her husband’s narcissism sucks all the oxygen out of the room and partly because her six-year-old daughter is ill back in New York with a mysterious ailment Jenifer fears is HIV-related, because she and Michael had a fling 12 years ago before she got married and he came out. Three attractive white kids mulling over relationships -- you might suspect a rehash of *thirtysomething*, the show that boosted Grant to national recognition as one of network TV’s first gay characters. But you’d be wrong. Grant pushes way beyond the typical sitcom plot-and-punchline conventions to create a rich, complex story with many hidden layers. The characters are at once recognizable and mysterious, even irritating. Why does big-hearted Michael seem so damaged? How can Jenifer be so insecure and paranoid? How can anybody put up with an asshole like Jonathan? Just when you think the play has zoomed past all believability, you stop and think about the hours you’ve spent in therapy complaining about similar issues. And your respect increases for Grant, a veteran actor who knows what a rare pleasure it is to encounter characters with subtexts and individual lives where you usually find cheap references to consumer-culture cliches. Underneath its Hollywood surface, *Snakebit* is really about the struggle to live in the real world conscientiously without succumbing to misery and self-martyrdom -- a recognizable theme from the work of Jon Robin Baitz, whose influence is detectable here. It’s not a perfect play, but even with its melodramatic stretches it’s an extraordinary debut that’s getting a dream production, superbly acted and impeccably directed. The title comes from a cryptic yet provocative offhanded comment -- “Liz Taylor was snakebit but she fought back” -- that, like the play as a whole, leaves you with something juicy to gnaw on. The Advocate, April 13, 1999 |
|
|