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| By Rob Urbinati Directed by Alexandra Aron and Dan Fields Featuring Cherise Booth, Cori Lynn Campbell, Beth Dzuricky, Jay Greenberg, Shelley McPherson, Corey Moosa, Stephen Nisbet, Jackie Payne, Michael Shimkin, Ana Mercedes Torres, and T.D.White Sets: Mark Fitzgibbons Queens Theatre In The Park, Queens, NY 9/02/06-09/24/06 |
Killing Themselves Softly
Considering its subject matter - celebrity suicides - "Karaoke Night at the Suicide Shack" is remarkably entertaining. The play by Rob Urbinati - receiving its world premiere in a showcase production at Queens Theatre in the Park, where Urbinati is associate artistic director - imagines the likes of Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway belting out old pop standards between revelations about their lives and observations on their deaths.
Their words are taken mostly from their own writings and interviews.
"Karaoke Night" takes place in a bar called the Suicide Shack. Mark Fitzgibbons' maritime-themed lounge, complete with portholes, is reminiscent of the 1944 movie "Between Two Worlds," in which Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid commit suicide, only to find themselves eternal passengers on an ocean liner to the other side, unable to get off with the dead who didn't take their own lives.
All the shipmates in "Karaoke Night" killed themselves. As the play begins, Hemingway and Plath are nursing drinks with Art Linkletter's daughter Diane, as Margaret Mary Ray, a celebrity stalker best known for breaking into David Letterman's house, tends bar and microphone. They are eventually joined by Abbie Hoffman, Kurt Cobain and other celebrities of varying degree.
Urbinati keeps the conversation flowing, having a new character make an entrance whenever it's needed to pick up the pace. These are complex human beings discussing interesting topics: the nature of celebrity and the psychological nuts and bolts of their decisions to end their lives.
The show runs one hour and forty-five minutes with no intermission, but under the direction of Alexandra Aron and Dan Fields, it doesn't seem nearly that long. Aron and Fields are blessed with a splendid cast.
Cori Lynn Campbell is engrossing as Diane Linkletter, who claims to be a victim of her father's celebrity. Her complaints are not new or surprising, but they ring with authenticity.
Cherise Boothe glows with subdued elegance as Dorothy Dandridge, the first black woman nominated for a best actress Oscar, and Jackie Payne bristles with sharp sexuality as the poet Anne Sexton. For the most part, they're a literate, articulate bunch who've led colorful lives...
"Karaoke Night" pulses with rhythm and lots of energy...It is to Urbinati's credit that he offers no facile explanation of the most final action a human can take.
By Michael Bracken, Newsday
April 25, 2003