Theater Review

Tom Titus

David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” remains, a generation after

it was written, one of the theater’s flashiest, funniest and

sharpest-edged comments on the twentysomething singles scene. It was made

to order for the student repertory company at OCC.

It is, however, a short play, a long one-act if you will. Thus, when

OCC’s student rep players elected to revive it, they didn’t want to cheat

the audience, so they padded the evening with a collection of Mamet

vignettes under the collective title, “I Think, Therefore I Mamet.”

Mamet, for all his later brilliance, didn’t have much of that incisive

zing in his earlier years, when the other playlets in the OCC menagerie

were created. But it’s almost worth sitting through the first half of the

program to bask in the earthy hilarity of “Sexual Perversity.”

You may recall the movie version, “About Last Night,” an entertaining

flick, but lacking the outlandish sizzle of the stage version. It centers

on a young couple who meet, fall in love, move in together and then

split. But the hefty end of the funny business belongs to their

respective sidekicks.

Or at least, it should. At OCC, there’s a brilliantly blatant performance

by the male buddy (who, to be fair, has all the best lines), but not much

heat from the opposite corner. Nevertheless, it’s an R-rated riot,

competently staged by Shawn Shryer.

Angel Correa enacts the shy guy who lucks into a great relationship, and

then puts his foot into it, with a natural sense of apprehension. As the

object of his affection, a slyly grinning Dahlia Alony catches the irony

of Mamet’s dialogue nicely, missing only in the area of volume, which

could amplify her character.

The show-stopping role of Correa’s hedonistic comrade is done to a

comical crisp by C. Russell Fowler, who’ll make feminists in the audience

cringe with his misogynistic assessment of the opposite sex. It’s a

whopper of a characterization, unfortunately unmatched by Alison

Hartson’s tepid interpretation of Alony’s gal pal, whose put-downs lack

the requisite punch.

The other Mamet offerings, which comprise the first act, are little more

than theater exercises. The best of this bunch is “4 a.m.,” directed by

Gary B. Finesilver, involving an all-night talk show host and a goofy

caller who wants to resurrect the DNA of all the world’s dead people and

relocate them on Jupiter.

Hugh Goodearl produces a pungent radio host, pleasantly dissecting the

nut case without really putting him down. Stephen Isaac Moore plays the

caller as though he’s from Jupiter himself, a study in comic hesitation.

“The Blue Hour” is a collection of skits possibly patterned on Edward

Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” each involving two people -- an aggressor and a

passive personality. They bear the imprint of a playwright in

development, none of them traveling full circle.

Their common bond is everyday frustrations, and Sherrie Stone hits the

mark best in the opener as a woman protesting her doctor’s over-inflated

bill.

Others involving the purchase of a wardrobe, two businessmen on an

airplane and two others waiting for a bus have all the consistency of

soggy cereal.

Nevertheless, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” makes the evening

worthwhile, and could have been an event in itself.

WHAT: “I Think, Therefore I Mamet”

WHERE: OCC Studio Theater

WHEN: Closing performances tonight at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.

HOW MUCH: $5 and $6

PHONE: (714) 432-5640