The Earl
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Apparently they were trying to prove the press release right: it describes The Earl as a “high-octane, rock ‘n’ roll, in-your-face, on the edge, hilarious, over the top, ass-kicking experience.” But though making Neveu’s hour-long play dude friendly may attract certain audiences, it also cheapens the experience of this surreal, profoundly unsettling one-act. The play centers on three brothers in their mid-20s who regularly play a savage ritualistic game in an abandoned office where they’ve hidden odd weapons–a cup of hot coffee, four darts. The only weapon out in the open is a crowbar, which the men regularly bring crashing down on one another. The game’s arcane rules are geared to maximize injury, yet it’s played with adolescent glee, as though gaping wounds were stick-on tattoos.
Rick, the youngest brother, is returning home for his first visit since moving to Los Angeles three years earlier, and older brothers Peter and Kent–resentful of his escape from their troubled family–quickly hobble him as the game begins. But Rick has brought a powerful ally, introduced later in the game: Mr. Stephens, a famous B-movie actor who’s gotten rich making the kind of violent films the game emulates. When he arrives halfway through the play, the real man behind the action hero starts inflicting real violence on men whose own brutal acts have become a kind of fantasy. It’s clear Mr. Stephens can’t separate his Hollywood persona from his real self–more than once he delivers a monologue from one of his movies–further blurring the line between truth and fiction.
Where: A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells
