SPEED THE PLAY
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Speed the Play begins a little shakily with Lux in Tenebris (“Light in Darkness”), an early and somewhat dated Bertolt Brecht one-act about prostitution, morality, and hypocrisy. One Mr. Paduk seeks to profit from the public’s prurient interests by opening an exhibit on the horrors of sexual disease right across the street from the local brothel. As the play goes on we learn that Mr. Paduk’s interest in educating the public comes not so much from a desire to preserve their health as from his anger at once having been ejected from said brothel. Brecht examines the parallels between the way Mr. Paduk exploits his assistant and the way a madame exploits her prostitutes, and ridicules the public’s absurd moral posturing by showing that the blushing, cackling, raincoat-clad individuals attending the exhibit are often the same sort who frequent the prostitutes. The conclusion, which shows Mr. Paduk and the madame becoming partners in exploitation, is obvious and predictable but effective.
The script seems to have been chosen for its connection with Dan Quayle & Company’s recent hypocritical speeches about family values and America’s cultural elite; but in this production the play feels a little worn and creaky. Brecht addressed many of the same ideas more interestingly in later works, and some of the passages are stiff and seem poorly translated. But Strawdog effectively captures the work’s themes, and the enthusiastic cast makes this a very watchable effort.
David Ives’s Speed the Play, a send-up of David Mamet that zooms through four of his plays in seven minutes, is the evening’s least effective one-act. Though the idea is amusing and some of the performances are quite funny, the parody does nothing to explain Mamet’s appeal or examine his work. It’s become a cliche to mimic Mamet characters saying “Fuck you,” “You’re fuckin’ right,” and so on. Second City did something similar about ten years ago, and lately Mr. Mamet’s been doing a better job of Mamet parody than anybody. The play’s only seven minutes, but after two minutes it’s said everything it has to say.
