Like some misplaced sculpture by Anselm Kiefer, a demolished automobile, gray-spattered and lichenous like rotting flesh, its headlights replaced by lighting instruments, hangs suspended over the set for Mickey Birnbaum's black, black comic fantasia, Big Death & Little Death, Woolly Mammoth's inaugural production in its new 7th & D space. The rest of the stunning set, designed by Elena Zlotescu, largely consists of a ginormous sash window set into a panel of fabric hung on a diagonal across the stage. There are no masking curtains hung at either side of the side, which means that we see other items of the set waiting in readiness, as well as one of the perks of the new theater—a fly rail!

Not quite everything in the space is operational. The cafe is not yet licensed or stocked, much of the signage is provisional, and the seats want bolting to the floor. But downstairs a huge window reveals rehearsal space (carpeted?), and the capacious auditorium feels intimate.

Birnbaum's script, concerning the family of a Gulf War veteran (played by the excellent, haunted Paul Morella) who returns with his scars on the inside, is not for the "God has a plan for me" crowd. The teenage children Kristi and Gary escape into the world of death metal music and utter pronouncements like "a human being is nothing but a booger of flesh." The father takes up photography, with a specialty in car accident scenes, and there's a particularly fine moment where he poses a pair of adulterous corpses as if he were on a fashion shoot. This play being a fantasy, the corpses grumblingly comply.

Much of Birnbaum's resume is in film, and he brings a cinematic sensibililty to this script. He's not afraid to cut off a scene quickly with no theatrical button to end it. His command of chronology is a little slippery: at one point a character refers to keeping in touch by e-mail, and the father talks about being 10 years in the desert. Are we to take it that he's been deployed for the span of both Iraq wars?

Maia DeSanti reveals new facets in her comic turn as the suicidal Miss Endor, a young guidance counselor with more issues than most of her students.

posted: 9:20:16 PM  

Thurl Ravenscroft, barrel-toned voice of Tony the Tiger and many other characters, has passed.

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)

posted: 12:55:40 PM