BLIND HEARTS
It almost seems that Johnson is writing a response to David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago, a play ripe for further exploration. Like Mamet, Johnson gives us a man and a woman who are romantically involved and another man and woman who remain on the sidelines for the most part. Virginia (Peggy Dunne) and Roy (Robert W. Barnett) spend the play maneuvering cautiously into marriage, while Virginia’s sister, Beverly (Diane Carr), and Roy’s best friend, Larry (Mark Wohlgenant), give lots of well-meaning but impractical advice. Larry, who is all macho bravado, encourages the ever-self-conscious Roy to talk dirty to Virginia. Larry speaks from experience: according to him, when he walks in a room “women’s tits sit up and bark.” Beverly, a practicing witch, casts spells, reads omens, and places a protective circle around Virginia to ensure her good fortune.
