THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260053
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC
LENGTH: 49 lines
SETTING THE repressive and frightening McCarthy era in a three-ring circus, complete with a ringmaster, is an idea rife with theatrical possibilities, most of them suggesting absurdist stylings.
Unfortunately, ``Clown Speak,'' the third evening of the Generic Theater's festival ``New Plays for Dog Days,'' does nothing with it.
Playwright Nikki Harmon is simply too timid. The fact that there is a ringmaster (who invariably misses her cues), circus rings outlined on the floor and clown wigs does little or nothing to transform this story of American horror and shame into anything more than a conventional narrative.
Brian Erickson is Harry, a screenwriter who goes through understandable fear and paranoia as he lives through the Senate investigation of Hollywood in the 1950s. We get a lot of ``facts'' about Harry, but little emotion.
He changes his name to hide his Jewish heritage. He is deferred from service in Korea. He writes B-budget scripts that he hopes ``can't be analyzed to mean anything.'' He fears lists of any type. He fears knowing anyone. He fears being known. Eventually, he learns to use lists against other people.
Paralleling the McCarthy Red scare to anti-Semitism effectively suggests that oppression is oppression by any name, but it's more confusing than it is dramatic. Likewise, the sense of paranoia as people lose their jobs and are driven to suicide is effectively suggested - but merely suggested.
``Clown Speak'' goes about its business as straightforwardly as did ``Are You Now or Have You Ever Been . . . ?'' That play, though, was a dramatization of history, not an effort at what, one supposes, was meant to be Theater of the Absurd.
The acting, with the exception of Karen Ve Londa Osburn as a wise grandmother who comments from an onlooker's position, is stiff and noticeably underrehearsed.
When one of the characters asks, ``Are we sending out a moral message or cashing in on a moral problem?'' the audience may well wonder the same thing. As any kind of protest to the McCarthy blacklistings, ``Clown Speak'' is more a whine than a roar. ILLUSTRATION: THEATER REVIEW
What: ``Clown Speak'' by Nikki Harmon; directed by Jodi Lynn
Murdoch
Where: Generic Theater, 912 W. 21st St., Norfolk
When: Tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $6
Information: 41-2160 by CNB