Tango

[May 2nd, 2007] Let's talk about truth in advertising. When a movie is billed as a Western, you expect horses and gunplay, right? And when you go to an Italian restaurant, you assume they will serve noodles, right? So when a press release for a play claims the main character's "miscalculations result in the rise of the barbarians and the destruction of the world," there had better be some goddamn barbarians. Furry hats, enormous broadswords and burning villages are optional.

Despite the irresistible promises of the publicity materials, there is no rape and very little pillaging in Tango, the 1964 absurdist comedy by Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek that closes out Theatre Vertigo's season. There's a lot of overwrought academic discussion, some reckless gunshots and plenty of overt weirdness, but no Huns. Sorry.

Tango is a play of ideas, or at least a debased parody of the play of ideas, revolving around the attempts of Arthur, a pompous little prick of a med student, to impose traditional (read "Victorian") values on his family of rebellious artists. It's the sort of script in which people keep calling each other "vulgar formalists" and wildly debating the merits of rebellion and conformity in art, and it would be dreadfully boring were it not for a few terrific performances: Gary Norman, easily the most flexible actor in town, has been aged 40 years into a resentful, demented old coot; Ben Plont, who has more comedic power in his right eyebrow than most performers can ever muster, plays the uncouth card shark who's sleeping with Arthur's mother; and Chris Porter is exceptionally grotesque as a devil-may-care "experimental theater artist" who can't be bothered to button his fly.

Unfortunately, the production's weak point is its leading man, Nathan Gale, who, like Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings, seems limited to two expressions: screaming maniac and childish pout. While his character is busy transforming the household into a miserable dictatorship, Gale manages to appear entirely unmenacing, coming across as more pathetic than frightening, even when he's ranting about the advantages of rule by brute force and waving a pistol at his great uncle. Gale gave fine performances in Vertigo's two other productions this season, and it's unclear whether the blame for his infantile hysterics in this show lies with him or with poor direction.

In all, Tango is amusing but tiresome, a well-intentioned production of a sinister but boring play that will appeal to those with a taste for over-the-top absurdism but leave others wondering what the hell they just sat through.