Word: innaurato
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Forget General Exams for English concentrators. If you can make it through a production of Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato's The Idiots Karamazov at the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) without feeling lost at least once, then you're well on your way to an encyclopedic knowledge of all Western literature. Talk about high cultural capital. It's not just any play that requires the equivalent of a doctorate in world literature for even cursory reference. But then again, Christopher Durang isn't just any writer. And perhaps only Durang could make a play so unabashedly laden with obscure references...
...famous meditation on being and nothingness (long before Sartre took the patent out on those themes) serves as the starting point of the Durang/Innaurato collaboration: four brothers, tempestuous love, life, death, etc, etc. But it doesn't take long to leave Dostoevsky in the dust as Durang and Innaurato jump full force into the whole of literature since the Book of Genesis. Durang has always been something of the Tom Stoppard of absurdist drama, but in The Idiots Karamazov he outdoes himself. Insert famous femme fatale Anas Nin, lover to the likes of Henry Miller, Gore Vidal and Salvador...
...FEEL FOR Tom's situation? Do we empathize with Aggy, who finds herself attracted once again to the life and values her upbringing condemns? Not really. It is difficult to mix tragedy and comedy, and while it works sometimes, perhaps Innaurato should stick to light laughs. The pathos of the second act just doesn't mesh with the humor of the first...
...begin to hear strangely familiar lines about letting children grow up and do their own thing, accepting those you love for what they are. While on first impression these lines seem trite and overused in themselves, our reactions most likely stem from the cynicism and self centered values Innaurato is attacking. Perhaps this is the true serious social message of passions. While watching the lives of the characters unfold, fueled part by humor, part by drama, we see a certain realism beneath the cliche, cardboard characters. We can feel some of Aggy's pain, brought to life by Lynda Robinson...
...course that it itself is enough to recommend the play for its sheer amusement. Keep the spicy jokes, but take it easy on the out-of-place social commentary, and Innaurato can still give you the ingredients for a delightful, if not necessarily through provoking, foray into cultural comedy...