Date: Fri 03-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Gravity-Calling-Yale-Cabaret

Full Text:

(rev "Gravity Calling" @Yale Summer Cabaret)

Theatre Review--

Better To Hang Up On This Call

(with cut)

By June April

NEW HAVEN -- The premiere of Gravity Calling by Canadian playwright Diane

Flacks, the first show this season for Yale Summer Cabaret, was basically a

one-way conversation, with little response from the audience. Billed as a

"wacky love triangle," the story is far too long and needs major rewriting.

The good news is Summer Cabaret fare can only be better.

Gravity Calling is intended to be a dark comedy about the lies, secrets, and

sexual habits of three contemporary urban dwellers. To the bored audience it

comes across as a rather abstruse and ungainly saga of three very weird and

deranged people.

The three cast members grappled, with sincere energy, with their

characterizations. The dark-haired Claudia Arenas portrays what seems to be an

aspiring stand-up comic, Aarin, who appears to have a sexual fixation on

vampires. (But this reviewer would not swear to the accuracy of that

interpretation.) Aarin also has a rather voyeuristic attachment to listening

in on telephone conversations of her neighbor Rebecca, who seems to be some

kind of telephone counselor for lonely, troubled callers.

As the cigarette-smoking nurse (and former girlfriend of the blood-toting

Chris) that occasionally appears rather mystically and mysteriously throughout

the first part of the play, Rebecca is possibly agoraphobic. Or maybe she is a

vampire that finds sunlight painful. It's all too confusing.

So the lovely Alicia Roper gets to suck bags of blood and writhe on the floor,

and try to solicit relationships with her neighbors, Chris and Aarin.

Robert Devaney strips through his role as the disturbed Chris. Absconding with

some of the blood he delivers, he does some kind of experiments with the

liquid, as well as supplying samples for Rebecca.

Frankly, it's worth skipping this play and look to the next production, Two by

Ionesco.