| Finding A Way Out of Scarcity |
| Written by Kevin Filipski | |||
Scarcitywritten by Lucy Thurberdirected by Jackson Gay starring Kristen Johnston, Maggie Kiley, Todd Weeks, Meredith Brandt, Jesse Eisenberg, Miriam Shor, Michael T. Weiss Atlantic Theater Company 336 West 20 Street Performances August 29–October 14, 2007 atlantictheater.org   Michael T. Weiss and Kristen Johnston in "Scarcity"  (l-r) Meredith Brandt, Kristen Johnston, Jesse Eisenberg and Michael T. Weiss in "Scarcity" That’s about the extent of Thurber’s insights. “Scarcity’s” exploration of this family–drunken, useless dad Herb, hard-working mother Martha, and their smart kids, 16-year-old Billy and 11-year-old Rachel–never coheres, since its author can’t decide whether she wants it to be a trailer-trash satire, a cautionary tale or a conventional melodrama. It ends up as none of these. Director Jackson Gay, unable to fashion a cohesive whole out of this mess, desperately resorts to an (relatively) old standby–blackouts between scenes are punctuated by ear-piercing heavy metal. The parents are on welfare, but they hold out hope that their children–particularly Billy, who’s in an accelerated program at school–are not chips off the old block, and can leave the nest to build a hopeful future. Surrounding the family are local deputy Louie, pining for his cousin Martha since they were children and still holding a torch for her; his wife, the clingy, needy Gloria; and Ellen, the young schoolteacher who’s giving Billy far too much attention. Thurber puts these characters through their paces without ever making a single solitary soul sympathetic, plausible or remotely human. There are times she seems to be mocking these poor souls; at others we are clearly meant to nod our heads in recognition, “there but for the grace of God go I”; and, for the rest of the play, the author seems unsure as to why we should spend two hours in their company. A scene in Act II has already caused critical derision: after the youngsters verbally abuse Ellen in increasingly nasty ways, Billy and the teacher engage in a fumbling bit of quick sex. It’s true that the children go further than what’s considered reasonable behavior, but that’s not the issue–after all, Thurber hammers home all evening that this family circles the wagons to defend each other, even when the father is accused of molesting his little girl (which family members themselves hint at earlier). No, the problem with this scene is that it is bereft of any psychological sense: a teacher this naive, this desperate, this foolish, would never be teaching an advanced high school program, even in such a backwater town. But it provides a bit of titillation and fake dramatic fireworks–and since the news has been sprinkled with such stories, such as the Mary Kay Letourneau case–Thurber sticks it into the play. There is a vulgar cleverness to Thurber’s dialogue which the cast digs into gleefully–especially Kristen Johnson, obviously having a blast as Martha, who insults Herb whenever she can–but that masks a play devoid of insight or empathy. It must be noted that Jesse Eisenberg and Meredith Brandt’s superlative performances as the youngsters almost make “Scarcity” watchable. Almost. {mos_ri}
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