Photo Source: Dave Beckerman
One Little Goat Theatre Company at La MaMa E.T.C.
Two battling sisters anxiously await the return of their prodigal brother, with whom they share a fraught relationship. No, it's not a revival of Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic" it's the New York premiere of Thomas Bernhard's 1986 play "Ritter, Dene, Voss," a dark comedy that loses itself in verbal pyrotechnics.
Titled after the three performers who originated the roles (that should give some indication of Bernhard's loosey-goosey approach to theater, one that includes excluding punctuation in his scripts), "Ritter, Dene, Voss" finds the philosophical Ludwig (Jordan Pettle), recently released from a mental institution at the insistence of his older sister (Maev Beaty), upsetting his sisters' carefully ordered lives with a bemused viciousness. Actors who are too wealthy to be bothered with appearing on stage unless they're bored, Ludwig's sisters fill their days with newspapers and menial chores, while Ludwig enjoys the peace of a life without his family.
There are some genuinely funny moments in "Ritter, Dene, Voss," when director Adam Seelig and his cast reach into the unpunctuated depths of Bernhard's play and wrest some sense out of the endless philosophizing. But most of the play blurs together, a sea of amusingly anguished childhood grudges (Ludwig and his younger sister, played with pinched animosity by Shannon Perreault, enjoying themselves on vacation while their older sister lies ill in bed) and renunciations of parents. That the cast manages to keep our attention hooked at all is a minor miracle, given that Seelig has emphasized Bernhard's complex dialogue with a minimal staging for most of the show's two hours. But we can't look away, even as we begin to see the sisters through Ludwig's eyes.
Subtly going from amusing spinsters to grating shrews, Beaty and Perreault have an ease with their characters that belies the sisters' complex motivations. And the handsome Pettle shows a noticeable lack of vanity, particularly while devouring a dessert of cream puffs at the end of a disastrous meal. But though there's entertainment to be had in watching these three talented actors tackle such a dizzying script, the enjoyment of "Ritter, Dene, Voss" is mainly cerebral.
Presented by and at La MaMa E.T.C., 74A E. Fourth St., NYC. Sep. 23–Oct. 10. Thu.–Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, www.theatermania.com, or www.lamama.org.
Mark Peikert