COLD CHAMBERS
In the first one-act, 3814, a depressed and angry couple, Tony and Nell, bicker and pick at each other in an apartment strewn with newspapers. Unemployed and broke, they live in a world that makes the Honeymooners’ lot look like easy street: “Turn on the radio.” “It’s broke.” “Oh, yeah.” They spend their days fighting in the most sterile terms: “Fuck you.” “No, fuck you.” Even when things are quiet between them, their barely repressed hostility and disappointment poison what could be a sweet moment. “Tony?” Nell asks. “Could you give me a hug?” “I’m smoking a cigarette,” he replies. “Put it out.” “This is my last one.” “I’ll give you one of mine.” “I hate Winstons.” “I’ll buy you a pack of Camels.” “You already owe me a pack.” And so on and so forth until you can’t help but hope Nell will shoot Tony just to shut him up.
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Larocca certainly knows this side of the street–maybe too well. This familiarity and his good ear for dialogue give his plays a certain poignancy and power that don’t quite make up for the fact that Larocca as a playwright is still pretty green. Not one of the five one-acts in Cold Chambers works all the way through, and none is, strictly speaking, dramatic. Larocca works very hard to create a situation or mood, but once he’s done so, he doesn’t allow it to develop. All too often his plots grind to a halt, hopelessly bogged down by pointless dialogue and characters who have nowhere to go. Ultimately, Larocca’s plays don’t end, they expire. This is nowhere more apparent than in Larocca’s fifth play of the evening, the punkier-than-thou Mexican Roulette. Little more than an extended skit, it concerns two junkies who spend the whole one-act talking about the trivial details of their lives as they play a variation of Russian roulette involving a loaded hypo taped to a lazy Susan. This sketch ends with the “winning” junkie passing out.
