Want, want, want
By Ed Rampell
Greed is a powerful force that compels and propels human beings, and which has motivated capitalism, as well as some of our greatest artists to create over the years. Erich Von Stroheim directed a silent movie masterpiece with that title during the 1920s, while Oliver Stone’s “greed is good” mantra was recited by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in another classic, 1987’s Wall Street, which Stone and Douglas revisited with last year’s sequel. Now playwright Karl Gajdusek (whose other plays include FUBAR) is adding to the greed canon with Greedy, a contemporary exploration of this attribute performed by an ensemble cast with some accomplished credits and ably directed by James Roday.
This Red Dog Squadron production is set against the ominous backdrop of a storm that recurs throughout the drama like rainy season at Pago Pago, as Greedy examines and exposes two different groups of characters whose lives become inexorably linked. Louis (Brad Raider) and Keira (Maggie Lawson) have a brother-sister relationship with incestuous undertones. She is a parasite who leeches off of her brother; Louis in turn relies on the money earned by his mannish lover, Janet (Amanda Detmer), who earns her daily bread as a security guard at a hospital.
Janet’s line of employment, as well as one of scam artist Keira’s schemes, links this trio to Tatiana (Ivana Milicevic) and Paul (on opening night Kurt Fuller played Paul). Here, Gajdusek’s drama takes an intriguing twist. Usually, we think of greed as being related to over-acquisitiveness and possessiveness of money and other means of wealth. However, Galdusek reveals, and rightly so, that humans can be overly zealous about acquiring other things. Paul, a defrocked doctor, has a desperate need to be wanted and loved for who he is. On the other hand, Paul’s considerably younger wife Tatiana, an Eastern European immigrant who seems like an on the make mail order bride, yearns to have a baby.
Their marriage reminds of Japanese comedian Tamayo Otsuki’s joke about the millionaire who asks his lover if she’d still love him if he lost everything. “I’d love you – and miss you very much,” is the funny response.
Much of this two-act's action is based on the intertwining of the different groups of characters, who are drawn together through various forms of greed, the play’s unifying principle. Indeed Greedy uses cinematic devices, such as video footage and more imaginatively, the theatrical version of a split screen. The book cluttered set by scenic designer Kurt Boetcher works well, too. The play also uses to good effect two spectral characters who are clad in raingear and roam the theatre before the proverbial curtain lifts, during intermission, etc. It’s a pretty creepy but evocative effect full of foreboding.
Greedy is well acted with convincing, sometimes chilling performances. Fuller’s Paul, craving, crawling to be liked, is especially affecting, in this complex story with complicated characters that was previously presented in New York. (Note: Apparently, in some performances, Peter McKenzie, depicts Paul.) There are recurring references to Nazism, as well as to Marxism. Perhaps the latter, with its promise of “from each according to their ability, to each according to his needs,” is meant to represent a counterpoint to capitalism, with its dog eat dog, every man for himself, to each according to his greed credo.
By the way, a recurring leitmotif in the drama is the desire to run away and get away from it all at a tropical isle. Pricey Bora Bora is frequently cited, but as someone who has been there a number of times, FYI, although Bora Bora may be, as James Michener claimed, the most beautiful isle on earth, $100,000 is probably not nearly enough money in order to retire at this over-inflated island in French Polynesia, where immigration authorities would presumably refuse non-French citizens residency rights, anyway. So the dream is mere fantasy.
The small but enthusiastic audience clearly enjoyed the premiere. However, be forewarned: even though the El Centro is more diminutive than L.A.’s usual 99-seaters, do try to get a seat in or near the front row. Not only because the heads of other theatre-goers obstructed my fourth row view, but more importantly, for a few seconds at the end, something important is briefly glimpsed onstage (which, of course, your humble and most obedient plot spoiler-adverse critic won’t reveal here, Dear Reader) that is vital to Greedy’s denouement.
(Greedy runs through Jan. 29 at the El Centro Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood, CA 90038. For more info: http://www.lajollaplayhouse.org/)
