Michael Mason, Cole Wimpee and Adam Belvo. Photography by Kalli Newman.
Buried inside the spew of words of Casey Wimpee's text, there is an actual story in "Lavaman," dealing with the way sons who have lost their mother deal with that tragedy. Arnie (Michael Mason), twin brother of Archie, creates a character in a never-written graphic novel called Lavaman, born in the fire of a volcano in Iceland and which harbors fire in his belly and anger in his heart. Archie, for his part, seems to have consumed, and been consumed by, the anarchic energies of punk rock -- by the time the play starts, Archie has died a burnt-out death, and our only knowledge of him is through his friends Gill (Cole Wimpee) and Dino (Adam Belvo).
More tragedy floods in. Dino is stabbed to death by a deer antler wielded by Arnie, now channeling the explosive spirit of Archie (though Gill might also have been the one to stab Dino) as the three of them, fueled by a stew of pharmaceuticals, attempt to rescue Erica, Gill's former girlfriend, from a gang of vegan bike dykes affiliated with the Hell's Angels. (Where the deer antler comes from and why Dino convinces the hapless pair to go through with this harebrained scheme are story elements I will leave to the discovery of the audience.)
But the story itself seems less important to writer Casey Wimpee than the way the story gets told: he fragments the tale so that the audience is fooled, at least for a time, into thinking it is watching something that is, in fact, not happening the way audience thinks it is. And what passes for dialogue between the characters tries to mimic the blasting sonic torrent of early punk -- Dino and Gill are motor-mouths supreme, and kudos to them for making Wimpee's riff upon riff upon riff upon riff articulate and (mostly) coherent.
Director Matthew Hancock sets the action in Gill's apartment (inherited from his dead mother -- dead mothers seems to abound in this play), suitably garbaged to fit the life of a ne'er-do-well who will never ever do well. Hancock's design team (lights by Jake Platt, sounds by Ryan Dorin, visual editing by Sean Berman, and projection consulting by Cameron Yeary) provide a driving punk soundtrack and projection drawings of Lavaman that are scatalogically funny and expressive of Arnie's inner torment.
Though I think that Wimpee wants the play's propulsive drive and high-decibel anxiety to be like a fist in the solar plexus, I found that these elements produced the opposite effect in me, a dissipation of my attention-span and a fatigue with/loss of interest in the characters' struggles. Less could be more here -- less indulgent language traded in for more self-reflection in the characters, less admiration for pure energy and more attention given to sharpening the dramatic conflicts. The show runs 105 minutes and could easily be tightened to 90 minutes with judicious editing, without any loss of emotional appeal or comic apocalypse.
That being said, praise for the three actors for their total commitment to what is happening on the stage and for a production that, in its trading of bodily fluids and its admiration for the dead art of punk, channels some much needed transgressive energy out into the boutiqued and malled environs of Soho.
(July 2009)