Word: erpingham
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...week's guests include Mr. and Mrs. Righteous Proletariat, Ken (Daniel Luke Zelman) and Eileen (Heather Gunn), as well as Mr. M.B.A. and Mrs. Happiness-is-a-BMW, Ted (Peter Ocko) and Lou (Nicole Galland). With such contrasting types in one place, something is rotten in the camp of Erpingham...
During the nightly entertainment show run by Head Sycophant, Chief Redcoat Riley (Peter Becker), Ken picks a fight with the less-than-tactful Riley for hitting his pregnant wife, causing general mayhem in the process. Erpingham, who stands for no such disturbances, promptly refuses to feed his campers and locks them within the grounds. In the classic rags-to-riches mode, Ken, with some help from Ted, leads a revolution against the director, and what follows is typically brutal Orton entropy...
Although Orton is one of the subtlest of recent satirists, he cannot help hammering in some of his points. He uses this campy (excuse the pun) situation to mock post-World War political dynamics. Scenes smack with references to the French Revolution and the civil war in Ireland. While Erpingham views a crowd of insurgent campers, "La Marseillaise" can be heard from a distance. OK, Joe, I get the hint. The campers follow the typical revolutionary pattern: frustrated by their efforts at peaceful reform, the rabble are instigated to get violent to the point of complete overthrow of the "government...
...slam-on-the-brakes ending further unsettles the audience. Orton is too clever to present a simplistic, Marxist denouement where the proles emerge victorious. Instead, when the campers achieve their victory, they, including fireball Kenny, are unwilling to face up to what they did. The Erpingham insurgents begin to praise their own dictator; "revolution" accomplished nothing. They are back to square one as is the audience. The audience must be wondering who or what to believe in, and Orton's nihilism offers little comfort...
...most part, Raphael elicits terrific performances from his no-holds-barred cast. Becker, Ocko, and Galland are all wonderfully loony tune and daffy in their roles, hamming it up to the hilt yet without excess. And Lindley, Logue and Linus Gelber are solid in their supporting roles as Erpingham sidekicks. The two best performances are those of Zelman and Gunn. In particular, Zelman plays Kenny with a hilarious bravado that energizes the entire show. It is in his scenes that The Erpingham Camp shifts into full farce flight...