A ‘Harold,’ invented by the late Del Close, is a training exercise in improvisation, structured to challenge its participants by requiring them to affix a comprehensive ending to a lengthier-than-usual session of free-form narrative exploration. David Holstein’s play reads like a transcript of such a process, patiently recording sketches, premises, situations, musings and confrontations until enough material has been accumulated to divide into five scenes, with a total running time clocking in at a smidgen over an hour.
Playwright: David Holstein
At: Appetite Theatre at
Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway
Phone: 773-528-9696; $15
Runs through: Aug. 9
Our story begins in a hospital anteroom where a young man fears for his brother, who is—brace yourselves, now—giving birth to a live puppy-dog through the only male body-orifice that can accommodate such a parturition. While the agonized progenitor howls in pain and a surgeon in a blood-soaked smock scurries back and forth, the grimly composed sibling chats with a nervous woman awaiting news of her boyfriend’s wife, whom she has run over with her car, and who later calms herself by disconnecting a randomly-chosen child’s life-support mechanism.
Our second scene follows the surgeon home, where his drug-dealing roommate has found Jesus—literally—passed out from a heroin overdose. The third scene introduces Satan, garbed as an orthodox Jew in tallis and payess, who recalls a boyhood same-sex encounter with the now-estranged J. Christ. Scene Four takes the bereaved brother in the first scene to his parents’ house, where his mother eagerly anticipates an assignation with the Pope—you heard me—and his father cheerfully prepares to welcome the apocalypse. Then, after everything has gone kerflooey, Jesus and Satan reunite in Scene Five for some pop-psychology reconciliations as they survey the earth in holocaust.
Playgoers looking for a dramatic, philosophical or theological through-line in this drivel will soon abandon their efforts. The apocalypse may supply a theme, and props such as a working waffle iron and a large toy panda generate some amusement, but characters who jump from one impulsive action to the next with never a hint of transitional subtext grow quickly tiresome—not just from a lack of motivational context, but from absence of individualized personalities sufficient to spark our empathy. The resulting activity provides the actors of the Appetite Theatre an opportunity to showcase their emotive skills, reveling in the passion of the moment, but cripples further demonstration of proficiency at fully realized interpretations of fully-written roles.