Word: bemisses
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Naked Eye" opens with cinematic flair in the downtown loft of Alex Del Flavio (Neil Maffin), a Mapplethorpe-esque photographer with a penchant for flowers, crucifixes and dicks. Seems predictable enough--and still does when Nan Bemiss (Pamela Hart) prances in. The Chanel-clad wife of the aforementioned bigot and Senator Pete Bemiss (Jeremy Geidt) has a "teeny" favor to ask of the, at this point, naked artist. The favor, of course, is that he self-censor a few of his more raw shots for the upcoming gala opening sponsored by the Bemisses...
...this all seems familiar and a bit dated (the NEA controversy was years ago), Rudnick's dialogue is so snappy and pleasantly consonant it doesn't matter. ("I worship you, I adore you, last Halloween, I was you" crows one of Alex's downtown friends to the bouffanty Mrs. Bemiss.) Director Christopher Ashley uses Derek McLane's sleek, convincing sets--Alex's loft and the Civic Central art museum--to the fullest extent, giving the actors a range of movement and building rhythm through the performance...
...what are essentially stereotyped parts. Strutting, proclaiming, writhing in what he calls his "flash bulb therapy," Maffin does a good imitation of an attention-starved, shock-happy artist slowly coming to terms with the hypocrisy of selling out. But by the play's end, Hart's consistently contrarian Nan Bemiss wins the audience's attention away from the flashier, impetuous artist with her more grown-up version of betrayal...
From the loft's cavernous elevator emerge some of the play's best performances. Sissy Bemiss Darnley (J. Smith Cameron), Nan's horrid daughter, rages through the studio proclaiming with monosyllabic hillarity--"It's hip, it's hot, it's space, it's art, it's a loft." Marcus (Thomas Derrah) and Katrin Dowling (Francine Torres, Ma Ubu of "Ubu Rock"), a pair of kooky magazine publishers and the token true hipsters of the production, persuade Alex to photograph their daughter Guernica's sixth birthday party...