THE MATING DANCE
Dressed in virginal white, this lonely out-of-towner has never met anyone like hot-to-trot Sandi. An apricot-hued menace straight out of Fatal Attraction, Sandi proceeds to confuse Jeff by repeatedly blowing hot and cold. Urging him to become an “Orange County cowboy” like the pretentious dudes she lays and leaves, Sandi leads Jeff on. Then she pushes him away. Suddenly she shrieks, “Don’t hit me!” Then–she thrives on rejection–she accuses this bewildered stranger of ugly jealousy. (You saw it all in Diane Keaton’s passive-aggressive librarian in Looking for Mr. Goodbar.)
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For its first 20 minutes–until the rampant misogyny becomes poisonous and Carl bursts in to turn the plot into a male version of Extremities–this play shows a scintilla of promise. Engelhardt ably spoofs romantic cliches–“Don’t spoil our perfect moment” accompanies a literal put- down–and he knows how to make sex hunger as ludicrous and erotic as life makes it. But weighed down with clumsy double entendres, heavy-handed non sequiturs (“Don’t argue with him–he works for the gas company”), xenophobic slams directed at Libyans, gratuitous slurs directed at gays, and repeated attempts to make rape look like fun, Engelhardt’s sophomoric concoction collapses. All we really wind up with is a tale about a nymphomaniac having her panties cut off by a slob with a big hunting knife.
Well, they don’t call themselves Torso Theatre for nothing. Somebody hand them a brain.
