Bruise Easy
Written by Dan LeFranc
American Theater Co., 1909 W. Byron (map)
thru Feb 14 | tix: $45-$48 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
A half-baked world premiere
American Theater Company presents
Bruise Easy
Review by Lawrence Bommer
Dan LeFranc, who created a multi-generational feast of feeling in American Theater Company’s The Big Meal, totally disappoints actors and audiences in this terse and empty commissioned world premiere. Seventy-five long minutes that are either slow and dull or fast and incoherent, Bruise Easy charts the uncertain (and deliberately shock-ridden) 2005 reunion of estranged siblings, acting out before the two-car garage door of the brother’s California condo. Drinking, puking, fighting and all but committing incest, these troubled, angst-ridden unloved ones are accompanied by a pseudo-cute Greek-style chorus of neighbor kids. These masked teens utter incredibly obvious comments on the silly-ass action.
Here very little happens inconsistently, given the mood swings and shock effects of a seemingly improvised script and its dumbass dialogue. Despite a frenetic video cyclorama and the forced enthusiasm of the joyless chorus (with their half-hearted “Woe, woe!”), this pretend tragedy never gets off the ground. Absolutely nothing is at stake: Tess gets to rampage through the garage as she tries to destroy every trace of her unhappy childhood. They almost go to the beach, which non-surfer boy Alex somehow hates. Alex, who has his own losses in love, takes forever to give his easily bruised sister her first “hickies” (Oh, the horror!). They eat junk food and sleep outside because, for no good reason at all, Tess can’t enter the damn house.
The M.I.A. mother never shows up, the brother and sister leave, and the bratty chorus proceed to tell us what we don’t care to know—about the future owners of the house. Then they alert the atrophied audience that we’re its last occupants but, despite our best efforts, we’ll still make the same mistakes. And that’s that.
It’s a paltry payoff to a half-baked script (which, being that the opening was postponed, was apparently rewritten down to the wire, never a good sign for a new work). Joanie Schultz and her young duo do more than could ever be needed to bring LeFranc’s “still life” to stage life. But the resentments never resonate. The character conflict is ill-defined and unmotivated. Bruise Easy is the artistic equivalent of paging through an excruciatingly random family album, where every unfocused snapshot means nothing to you whatsoever. Oh, the boredom!
Rating: ★
Bruise Easy continues through February 14th at American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron (map), with performances Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays 2pm and 8pm, Sundays 2pm. Tickets are $45-$48, and are available by phone (773-409-4125) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at ATCweb.org. (Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Michael Brosilow
artists
cast
Matt Farabee (Alec), Kelly O’Sullivan (Tess), Matt Gomez Hidaka, Dante Guinazzo, Jenna Makkawy, Sandy Nguyen, Michael Sandoval, Leah Schiffman (Neighborhood Kids)
behind the scenes
Joanie Schultz (director), Chelsea Warren (set design), Jenny Mannis (costume design), Lee Keenan (lighting design, projection design), Thomas Dixon (sound design), Archer Curry (props design), Dave Gonzalez (fight choreography), Nora Bingham (circus choreography), Andres Fonseca (skate choreography), Nathan Drackett (bike choreography), Brittany Gillespie (assistant director), Amanda J. Davis (stage manager), Luci Kersting (asst. stage manager), Michael Brosilow (photos)
16-0115
