INSIDE GEORGE
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But lack of action isn’t the real problem. Contrary to what the title implies, George has nothing inside him. He’s a cardboard cutout of a character who exists only as a pose. Even though he’s supposedly the author of ten books and three novellas, he doesn’t say anything even remotely interesting. And when he tries to express himself, he tends to generate bloated, pompous prose. “I’m stuck in a web of fiction I created, impaled on my dreams,” he whines. His basic problem–“I’ve never experienced love”–has possibilities, but playwright Dan LaMorte displays little interest in this aspect of the character. George’s failure at love is just a plot contrivance, with no motivation or authentic emotion behind it.
And speaking of plot contrivances, Inside George consists of almost nothing else. The play opens with George sprawled facedown on the floor, a detective drawing a chalk line around the body. As Pamela tries to answer another detective’s questions George springs to life, and the rest of the play is a flashback leading to George’s death. We see George on dates with Pamela, and complaining about his stalled love life to his agent (who effortlessly picks up a waitress at the restaurant where they go for breakfast). We listen to George’s numerous monologues commenting on his problems. (“Oh my God!” he cries during a date with Pamela. “What am I going to say? She expects me to bare my soul.”) At a cocktail party, George acts out a fantasy in which he destroys each annoying guest, using imaginary machine guns, grenades, and dynamite. Why is he so upset? No reason. The scene is just supposed to be funny. The most conspicuous feature of George’s personality is his tendency to zone out during conversations, as though lost in thought. This does nothing, however, to establish him as a deep thinker, especially after he uses the phrase “Beam me up, Scotty.” While giving a speech about marriage based on his magazine article “Say I Do” George is heckled, but the heckling is vague and pointless, and George reacts to it with mere befuddlement. Even his death at the beginning of the play, it turns out, is a contrivance.
