SYDNEY: DUMMY AT LARGE
The most interesting moment in Sydney: Dummy at Large occurs at the top of the show, when we see the set for the first time: a tiny (one-third scale or so) hospital room with a single bed. In the bed is a ventriloquist’s dummy, hooked up to an IV, his face partly worn away. This is Sydney. In the chair next to him is another ventriloquist’s dummy, this one dressed in a military uniform, with the hard, tired, cynical look of someone who has done too much, seen too much, but can’t afford to retire just yet.
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Unfortunately, the rest of the show never quite lives up to the promise of this opening tableau. Part of the problem is that the stage picture never changes. The dummies, as might be expected, are rooted in place, and so within a few minutes of this hour-long one-act what was at first startling becomes as visually tiresome as a museum diorama. But mostly the play falters because writer/director Stephan Mazurek’s story–about a secret agent who runs afoul of his agency when he falls in love with one of the locals he’s been sent to spy on–is never as compelling or original as the way Mazurek chooses to tell it.
In Scribblings From a Broad, the second play on the bill, Mazurek falls into the same trap. Once again he employs a strikingly original slide show, this time in color, to prop up a less than striking narrative. The story is told by a live actress this time (Loren Crawford), in the form of a letter, or series of letters–it’s never clear which–from a depressed sister to her brother. Over the course of the show, we learn the woman is suffering from some excruciating, painful illness and may be dying.
