THE WIDOW’S BLIND DATE
Gang rape is one of the ugliest of crimes: not as certainly fatal as, say, an arson fire in a day-care center or a fragmentation bomb in a sports arena, but certainly one of the most shameful and humiliating acts, not only to the victim but to the perpetrators and witnesses as well. It’s impossible for any participant, active or passive, to think himself–or herself, for the role of rapist is assigned not on the basis of gender but of power–a moral, rational, compassionate human being. The sociologists may talk of pack-animal hunting instincts and bonding rituals, but there can be no comparison between five 80-pound wolves running down a 900-pound caribou and seven members of the species Homo sapiens brutalizing a lone member of their own kind. For such a thing to occur, the attackers must be convinced that the object of their abuse is larger and stronger, or subhumanly and intrinsically evil, and that they themselves are the more vulnerable. Thus each “team” member can think of himself or herself as a David going up against a Goliath, a Judith against a Holofernes, though the “giant” may be far smaller and weaker than any one of its attackers.
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This leaves us with a script that, however flawed by excessive length, is nonetheless a staggering tour de force for the actors playing it. The cast are quite up to the task, carrying out their duties with ease and agility, sustaining a taut suspense and our anticipation of violence. Harold McCay’s set assists in this, with its bales and stacks of tattered newspaper evoking a disorder made all the more theatening by the ominous presence of the baling machine. Terry “Turk” Muller as Archie and Robert Maffia as George, the criminals as petty as their crime is heinous, convey perfectly the symbiotic solidarity of two losers sharing the denial of their pointless lives (and hinting at the almost erotic expression characteristic of even the most heterosexual of such partnerships). Bethany Evans, with her flinty face and bantamweight aggressiveness, makes Margy more than a match for both of them put together.
