February 2010

This sexual roundelay about power and powerlessness, about the imagination butting up against so-called “reality,” is played out by two contemporary characters. As it begins, we sit facing Thomas (Wes Bentley), a playwright who has written an adaptation of “Venus in Furs.” He’s in a rehearsal studio—a grayish, minimal, anonymous space with fluorescent track lighting. He is talking on the phone to his fiancée, at the end of a long day of auditions for his play; he wants to get home. We can hear thunder and rain outside. But no sooner has Thomas put down the phone than Vanda (the phenomenal Nina Arianda) enters, dressed in a trenchcoat and carrying a broken umbrella. Vanda is like the weather: a force of nature that drenches whoever gets caught up in its sway. She wants to know if she can audition for Thomas. He tries to brush her off, but the brassy Vanda sets about to convince him that she’s the only woman who can play the part. Sometimes she throws him a compliment; sometimes she tries to appear helpless, which she is not at all. She’s simply testing Thomas’s “maleness”—that is, his desire to be counted on, to be admired, to be “Daddy.” Would he like her to wear a white dress for the audition? she asks. (Thomas is too shocked or timid to mention the bondage-like gear that Vanda has on under her coat when she arrives.) Donning the white dress, she asks is it “real 1870”? She wants to know what kind of accent she should use to play Wanda, the dominating woman whom Severin eventually meets at the spa. When Thomas still doesn’t know how to respond, Vanda just does her thing. And, as soon as she starts to read, she’s no longer Vanda but Wanda, a measured woman with impeccable Continental diction. The transformation is subtle and not so subtle—acting is Vanda’s bag, and it becomes ours, too, as we watch Thomas become more and more powerless in the presence of her unconquerable vitality, her seductive energy.

-Hilton Als, writing in the New Yorker

I ventured out in during the snow day to see it, and it was totally worth the messy trip.  CSC is a small theater and this play is performed in 90 minutes with no intermission. The chemistry and power exchange that develops between the actors, both in the play and the play-within-a play, are riveting.. I’ve been telling everyone to see it. I found out from my pal Thor that the run has been extended until March 28rd. If you hunt around the internet, you may be able to get discounted tickets. If you’ve never read the book, you can find it at the Gutenberg Project.

Tagged as: masochism, nyc, theater