Carol
(Jennifer Damiano) and Bob (Joel Perez) and Alice (Ana Nogueira) and
Ted
(Michael Zegen)
Bob &
Carol & Ted & Alice
By Eugene Paul
Titillation.
That’s what brought you here, especially if you’re old enough to remember
the 1969 Paul Mazursky film which fanned mileage with fans by that bed full of
four in the flesh movie stars, Robert Culp, Natalie Wood, Elliot Gould and
Dyann Cannon presumably naked under their communal sheets. Elliot is still working,
bless him, the mischievous gleam still more than a twinkle.
Carol
(Jennifer Damiano) and Bob (Joel Perez)
photos by Monique Carboni
That
cuddlesome company was up on the big screen in glorious color, but gloryosky,
here you are in the cuddlesome surrounds of the Linney Theatre at the
Signature Center right practically in the same bed with them practically in
pinching distance, except you know that they’re not really bare assed under the
sheet. There’s decency laws in the theater, if not in politics. Well, maybe
one of them but, gees, that hardly counts. In the past couple of months you’ve
seen how many stretches of private – ha! – parts in how many other plays and so
what? Titillation. Suckered you in.
Suzanne Vega
Constantly
inventive scenic designer Derek McLane nails it with a huge, shimmering wall
across the thrust stage, an elegant relative of those shiny beaded curtains de
rigueur for strippers making seductive entrances. Before it, director Scott
Elliot places music stager Kelly Devine’s shadowed band, Jason Hart, Simon
Kafka, Noelle Rueschman and Jamie Mohamdien, all presumably backing stunning
Suzanne Vega as their band leader vocalist, even as she interacts with the
two couples, gently mocking, pulling their strings, enlightened Bob (Joel
Perez) and Carol (Jennifer Damiano), and their very dearest friends, not so
enlightened Ted (Michael Zegen) and Alice (Ana Nogueira).
Remember
Esalen, Primal Scream, Sexual Liberation and all that? No, of course you
don’t. Enlightened Bob and Carol have communed their way through and thus,
they are Enlightened. When Bob has what he calls an affair with a blonde, he
tells his raven haired beautiful wife Carol about it. Affair is sheer
aggrandizing, it was a one night stand. And enlightened Carol is perfectly
all right with it. It was only sex. They still love each other. As they
demonstrate, rolling around on the bed, the couch now fashioned a bed with the
assist of a couple of mid-Century ottomans pushed into place. They whip off
their clothes, well, not all of course, just the usual pretending, and
occasional breaks for singing into an actual microphone. Frequently Band Leader
Vocalist Vega hands them their microphones. It’s al very loosy goosy.
But
– Ted and Alice are not Enlightened. And when Carol tells them of Bob’s affair
– she’s a nice girl and does not say one night stand - unlightened Alice is
considerably perturbed. And Bob, perpetually horny, is perturbed too but in a
different way. This is, of course, when the bed is not a bed, it is
deconstructed into a couch and two handsome ottomans and their place is their
space but not quite because that band is there all the time and they have
microphones to sing into, or not as the case may be. With all of us waiting for
the famous four in a bed scene to recreate past splendors, why else do you
think the title of the show is what it is? With all its overtones? And
Undertones?
The
Book by Jonathan Marc Sherman is so faithful to the film that Duncan Sheik’s
music seems to interrupt it in order for songs to pipe up. They are nice
songs, reminiscent of the period, somewhat in the Bacharach-ish mode. Everyone
can sing, of course, and everyone sort of dances, all four of them, with the
total lack of grace that can still be seen today at weddings and bar mitzvahs,
all those moves which were so outrageous now common fare, still ridiculous, but
with kindly overlays. Costume designer Jeff Mahshie has had a riot of a time –
clothes are changed and/or shed dozens of times. The women fare better than
the men. Dare I say it? Boring.
And
when everybody finally gets into bed together, all of them Enlightened, Band
Leader Suzanne Vega hovering like the Good Fairy, the inevitable big payoff to
all of the buildup, for a little flash of true enlightenment one of the real
moments visits the stage. It is very welcome.
Bob
& Carol & Ted & Alice. At the Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street. Tickets: $28-$103. 1 hr, 45 min. 212=249=7529. Extended thru Mar 22.