SON OF THE BITCH . . . SKID MARK AFTER DARK
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Far from the misbegotten child it purports to be, this latest effort from Mary-Arrchie Theatre is a perfectly logical development from its predecessor. A show like Bitch With Rich, which deliberately encouraged its audience-participants to fling shit about indiscriminately, sooner or later accumulates an awful lot of shit. Call it bad vibrations, leftover karma, or whatever–even when it’s not your anger, even when it’s not directed at you, witnessing this much fury and frustration leaves craters on the surface of your soul that don’t erode for a long time (as police officers, combat soldiers, and customer-service reps can attest). Before these toxic wastes poison your humanity, something must be done to restore some kind of order to the universe.
Cotovsky has found a way to use the badass residue of Bitch With Rich as fuel for a new and daring counterbitch. Performed by the 14-member Skid Mark Players, this series of skits is scary, but the scariest part is the knowledge that they were inspired by extempore interviews with theatergoers–in other words, by us. And these players are not content merely to point their fingers–instead they personify the social malignancies twisting the bowels of our society.
Son of the Bitch (which changes nightly, each evening’s program selected from a list of possibilities by some oracular process) is an ugly show about ugly people, and many audience members may not feel comfortable sharing the risk of putting on the monster’s clothes and maybe discovering that they fit. “As we trek through this cesspool called life, we approach the naked truth we are seeking,” Skid Mark tells us. “As we approach that truth, we realize that we do not want to know it. But we have one thing available to us, and that is choice. We can join, we can bitch, or we can die. If you join, you must give up a portion of your mind. Me–I’m gonna bitch!” I joined, and have given up a part of myself in doing so–but the kind of articulate and courageous bitching Cotovsky and company do serves to remind us we are not perfect. Little in this world is, to be sure, but there’s no fault in trying to make it better.
