www.sffringe.org/media/odd2.html -
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Published on: 4/19/2006
Last Visited: 5/10/2009
by Sean Owens
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But having recently tasted Sean Owens' "Odd by Nature" at the Exit Theatre, I now realize that I don't need to hijack Meredith Brody's column in order to write about fine dining.
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Owens whets the appetite with a strange little hors d'oeuvre.
The five cast members -- Owens, Libby O'Connell, Joshua Pollock, Nick Sholley, and Michelle Talgarow -- float around the stage to the sound of Don Seaver's saloon-style piano playing, alternately draping themselves over bits of shabby antique furniture and, somewhat incongruously, exchanging oven gloves with each other.
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Climax -- Owens' curtain raiser concerning a stilted, pre-dinner party conversation between a middle-aged couple played by Owens and O'Connell -- gives the audience a taste of the playwright's flamboyant style.
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And as the play perversely undermines its own title by deliberately putting off any sense of climax, Owens draws us tantalizingly on to the next dish.
Sudden Descent is, as its name suggests, a bit of a letdown.
Though the comedy, a whimsical spin on the old adage "Pigs might fly," shows off the chef's flair for witty one-liners, the staginess of the piece, with its endless waltzing and monotonous, fourth wall-breaking narrative style, leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Potentially interesting underlying ideas about chaos theory and the relationship between will and causality get lost in the pork stew.
Owens spices things up again with his vivaciously warped monologue Buried Alive by the Hottest Guy.
Beginning with the words "Dear Diary," a nonplussed young gay man explains how he wound up buried six feet underground.
Owens' sharply drawn portrayal of this naive yet lovable character is as dark as it is hilarious.
Je Ne Sais Pas and The Chattanooga are the plats de résistance.
Separated by the briefest of palate cleansers -- One Man (At a Time), a nouveau-Noel Coward song about tempering one's (sexual) appetite -- these two meaty main courses are as rich in lunatic wordplay as they are in topsy-turvy logic.
Je Ne Sais Pas takes place, appropriately, in a fancy French restaurant.
Exploring, as the play's subtitle explains, "the fallacy of causal relationships," the comedy begins, like the famous children's rhyme, with an old woman who swallows a fly, then munches its way through other ghoulish, nursery rhyme-inspired delicacies, including "l'arraigne [sic] en brioche" (spider popover) and "le chien au vin" (dog in wine), and finishes ... well, we all know what happens to the old woman upon ingesting a horse.
Owens builds to an explosive climax with this piece, playing with genres as diverse as Hammett-style detective fiction and Monty Python-esque sketch comedy while piling on the galloping rhymes.
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But after Everyone Loves Porn, a chaser sung by the entire cast to a rousing show tune, Owens leaves us wanting more.
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