Staff Blog
Extremities, New City Stage Co.
posted by mark cofta
I think it’s impossible to feel satisfied by William Mastrosimone’s Extremities — and that’s the point.
Marjorie (Alana Gerlach) overpowers an attacker in her home (Paul Felder) — a disturbingly violent scene staged expertly by Ian Rose — and faces an impossible question: What can, and should, she do with him? The smooth-talking, lie-spouting assailant taunts her with assurances that if she calls the police, he’ll soon be released and will return to finish the job. He’s probably just trying to scare her and buy himself time – but Marjorie takes the threat seriously, realizing that the only sure way to stop this serial "raper" is to dispose of him permanently.
Mastrosimone builds the variables carefully: we hear Raul’s (his ethnicity suppressed in director William Roudebush’s production) tangle of lies, and his all-too-plausible threats. But just as we’re rooting for Marjorie to dispense justice, her housemates arrive. Mastrosimone frustrates our lust for revenge with both their high-minded ethical concerns (Does taking violent revenge make Marjorie no better than her attacker?) and their emotional responses (Did Marjorie steal Terry’s boyfriend? Does she, as Patricia claims, parade around half-dressed, flirting with their men?), all heightened by Raul’s devious manipulation.
Everyone’s view — including ours — is filtered through personal agendas. Terry (Ginger Dayle) and Patricia (Kristyn Chouiniere) pit sympathy for wounded Raul against fear for their own complicity, doubt Marjorie’s innocence and the inevitable selfish desire to just walk away from the problem. Everyone’s right, and everyone’s wrong.
Roudebush’s production, despite its lapses (Dayle’s cartoony dumb-blonde interpretation of Terry), dumps this huge emotional mess in our laps. The inevitable conclusion, we might all eventually agree, is the best resolution of an impossible situation. But Mastrosimone’s point is to make our journey to peace of mind as painful and scary as Marjorie’s, and in this, Extremities ably succeeds.
