by D. Jette

Andrew Block, director of Rogue Machine’s newest late night Off-The-Clock adventure, wants artists to look at themselves and laugh.  By choosing to direct Bingo with the Indians, Adam Rapp’s short play about penniless thespian grifters who seduce themselves and others with their theatrical pretentions, Block happily invites criticism on both himself and his chosen craft.  ‘We all hunger for success,’ he writes, ‘We all have our voices crying out to be heard.  And we all take ourselves way too fucking seriously.’

Anyone who spends time around the theater will feel the barbs Rapp has scattered throughout Bingo.  The play is an unflattering caricature of a hipster acting troupe stopping in New Hampshire to rustle up funds for a new production.  Patrick Flanagan plays the unstable drug-addict actor Stash, a ‘prop-whore’ presumably named for his Burt Reynolds worthy lip sweater and a tendency to delve into comically enormous bags of cocaine.  Melissa Paladino plays the group’s butchy director and leader who refers constantly to her big-fish-small-pond period where her shocking productions shook up the community college theatrical circuit.  They specialize in shocking, ensemble generated ’site-specific’ plays that defy category and palatability alike.  Also there’s an obedient stage manager with his own ambitions in gay erotica.  Familiar?

The action is limited to a hotel room in a small Laconia town where the local church bingo is the biggest Friday night draw for a hundred miles, attracting off-stage droves of Native Americans and leather-core lesbians.  The group plans to steal the church’s weekly haul, totaling perhaps in the thousands, but they are delayed by the family that runs the inn: A ginger-haired teenager named Steve who fancies himself an actor, his bi-curious ex-girlfriend Angie, his oblivious mother, and an Algonquin dancer who inexplicably interrupts the already contrived narrative.  The townies linger and meddle, and through a series of perverse encounters the young boy and his world are changed forever.  Rapp has written a self-aware and unlikely story that is too high on itself to worry about drawing us in.

The show had me chuckling out of recognition more than wit.  After all, like Steve, I was once a glossy-eyed New Hampshire boy discovering marijuana and the Alexander technique, eager to follow his wild-child girlfriend to a life of making theater in the big city.  (My girlfriend was even named Angie.)  As an undergrad I impressed myself constantly by bravely staging violent and bloody plays in the face of an imagined board of censors.  Even now I commit the very sins of pretention that doom Rapp’s characters to a life lived under the covers, away from judging eyes that might notice my dearth of talent and suggest for me a career in bus driving.  If I am Rogue Machine’s intended audience, then they have hit their mark.  But familiarity can only go so far, at some point a human connection must be made, one that is heavier than the specifics of any given circumstance.

Block’s cast comes close, notably during the seduction between Steve and Wilson, the stage manager played by West Liang.  There is a palpable energy between the two and, despite the clumsy writing, the scene achieves a naughty thrill.  This is an example of how a selfish, bawdy act can shock an audience into guilty salivation.  Steve’s mother, played by a constantly bewildered Ann Bronston, sagely utters of the theater that ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place that gets so dark.’  This is a sentiment that Bingo honors, however clumsily.  (Can’t Adam Rapp write a play without a dead sister?  I’m just saying.)

The shocking elements of the story (which include onstage anal sex and a surprisingly deft rap about the infamous ‘Turd-Burglar’) seem to preoccupy not only the playwright, but the actors as well.  The audience is left with little reason to care for these characters (with the exception of Brian Norris who cuts a sympathetically wide eyed performance from a silly script) and no reality where the cruelty might land and affect.  Without a foundation in love or pity, the violent ending is awkward and inconsequential.  While the design and staging are competent, the play fulfills its own critiques of concept heavy performance.  I was waiting for it to end.

But this is a part of what we’re meant to experience, isn’t it?  Don’t we gather into tiny theaters under crumbling freeways, in back-wrenching seats, shoulder to shoulder with each other to watch the underemployed practice a dying trade?  It’s funny, when you think about it!  I’m laughing, because I know the joke’s on me.  Bingo with the Indians teaches us to lower our expectations of avant-garde theater, a lesson which I refuse to learn.

Bingo with the Indians is directed by Andrew Block and features Patrick Flanagan, Melissa Paladino, West Liang, Brian Norris, Ann Bronston, Corryn Cummins and Ron Joseph.  The script was written by Adam Rapp in 2007 and first premiered at the Flea Theater in New York City.  Lighting Design is by Jen Riley and the stage manager is Schuyler Helford.

Bingo With the Indians is performed Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 pm and Sundays at 4 pm through June 7, 2009 and is for MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.

Theatre Theater is located at 5041 Pico Blvd just west of La Brea.

Ticket prices: $15.00

For reservations call: (323) 960-7774 or visit www.roguemachinetheatre.com