Word: goldberg
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with a typical breakfast for the Boleses, mild-mannered Petey (Joseph A. Nuccio '00) and effusive Meg (Erica Rabbit '00). All's more or less cornflakes and skittles, even for the laterising nowhere-man boarder Stanley Webber (Dominic Doyle), until two visitors arrive. Up to no good, these two, Goldberg (Jonathon Heawood) and flunky McCann (Henry Clarke '00), apparently have some history they'd like to clear up with dear Stanley--exactly what, we don't know...
Even more enigmatic, Doyle's Stanley seems at first to be a top-dog boarder, criticizing breakfast with adolescent snideness and even menacing Meg, an easy target. Gradually, his nervous energy increases as he faces the impending threat of Goldberg and McCann. Finally, after shuffling attempts at lying and evasion, he is reduced to cowering, shell-shocked silence. Playing his character with the jumpiness of a dog that knows he's going to be whipped, Doyle turns out a finely shaded performance...
Clarke and Heawood as the two dark horsemen, McCann and Goldberg, are sinister enough in their own different ways, each keeping to his side of the stage. Clarke nails the heavy, deliberate body language of a tough flunky, but at the same time implies McCann's underlying madness, through red-faced yelling that seems to go too far. Heawood's Goldberg is a talky smoothie, calming his victims like a dog trainer with empty statements of conciliation. Though self-assured and, quite apparently from his spiffy vest, the leader of the two, Goldberg would fall apart under closer examination. Heawood...
...members of the cast deliver lines with an apt sense of timing, particularly Rabbit and Heawood, both of whose differently-toned platitudes can be very funny. Perhaps the only sore spot lies in the admittedly difficult role of Lulu (Abigail Gray), a friendly neighbor whom Goldberg seduces. While she seems to exist only as one more way in which Goldberg can menace Stanley--sexually--Gray comes across as somewhat more awkward than necessary...
...production's tragic flaw, then, consists of a desire to package the play's ambiguities up neatly. After all these fine performances, the interpretation put at the end upon Goldberg and McCann's departure with Stanley comes across as heavy-handed, and far less interesting than the strange world the characters have been inhabiting for the last hour or so. And the ending to each act--placing one character in the corner of the exaggerated perspective created by a slanting set--already pushes patience...