IN THE FLESH
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. –from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
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Set in north London’s Pentonville Prison, said to be the resting ground of such notorious executed killers as Dr. Crippen, In the Flesh concerns the consciousness-altering relationship between two inmates. Cleveland Smith is a seedy career con, a small-time dope dealer wrapped in an “armor of indifference” against whatever pain or pleasure the world might visit on him. A youthful first-time offender, Billy Tait, is assigned to Smith’s cell so that Smith can protect the kid from prison rapists. Though Billy seems a listless drifter, he’s soon revealed to be a man with a mission: enlisting Smith, he sets about to find the grave of his grandfather, Edgar Tait, a religious fanatic who slaughtered all his family with the accidental exception of Billy’s mother.
Ultimately the play is weakened by the limitations of its genre, however. For all its claims to metaphysical allegory, In the Flesh is less profound than it aspires to be, and sometimes it’s downright hokey: a ritual celebration of violence by a congregation of killers is straight out of a 1960s Roger Corman movie, as is Jamie Eldredge’s Vincent Price-like characterization of Billy’s murderous grandpa.
A dreamlike effect is also achieved in Parlando, performed by the Doorika ensemble in its out-of-the-way loft west of the Loop; but here the dream is comic, illogical, and generally incomprehensible. Though judging from its stage pictures the production follows a fairly simple plot line–about a virginal farm girl who makes her way to the big city and winds up dancing in a sleazy nightclub–the cast-created dialogue is a confounding stream of non sequiturs, camp cliches, and out-and-out nonsense. The songs, by Frank Navin, poke fun at feminine stereotypes by appropriating styles ranging from 1920s torch songs to exhibitionistic poseur pop a la Madonna, but their lyrics are so banal they defy empathy.
