There’s much more than a touch of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in the character of Katharine Sherman‘s Christopher Marlowe in her new play, Christopher Marlowe’s Chloroform Dreams, running at the lower east side’s The Red Room. The time-and-smoke shrouded legend of the Elizabethan playwright hangs over the proceedings and propels the story all the way, and then nearly, to its end. Familiar tropes from classical mythology and fairy tale erupt everywhere in a noiresque style tale of a femme who is at once fatale and in flight. Mix in more than a strain of poetic patter and the result might be ponderous, over rich and over-reaching if it weren’t from the pen of a careful, gifted playwright who has a sharpened sense of when to call off the big thunderous themes to allow the smaller human story to breathe. Sherman is excellently served in this production by director Philip Gates who has done a great deal to let this highly theatrical, complexly structured drama flow. And flow it does, like silk, like smoke.

Gumshoe Marlowe (the playwright, not the fictional detective) is on the case and it’s a case of love’s labor’s lost as the gal he pines for, Daphne Fairchild, has a problem with the needle. It’s somewhere, sometime in the eternal noir of Hollywood’s 1940s and the environment is murky with urban underbelly, its sinners, and its saints. Daphne has taken up with contraband king Ingram Frizer, who keeps her in morphine embrace. Marlowe tries to cut a deal with Frizer to release Daphne, and Frizer, like the southern drawling megalomaniac he is, perversely agrees. Confident of the weakness of the human spirit Frizer is sure of Daphne’s faithlessness, or rather as he would have it, faithfulness to the true church of humanity – what he has to offer. The narrative evolves in non-linear fashion, jumping between episodes of elation and degradation, hopefulness and despair. We pretty much all know in what direction the story is heading and this disrupted sequencing brings a freshness to the unfolding, allowing us to see the tale as if shot from diverse angles. Clever staging and ingenious scenic design (Joshua David Bishop) work to brilliant effect in keeping the tempo up while contributing to a sense of layered story and hidden motives.

A polymorphous narrative builds in a polygeneric world. Marlowe, playwright/detective, is in search of his muse/dame, herself enthrall to intoxicating sensual abandon, emotional numbness. She is at once the mythical Daphne, in flight from the god of poetry and his promise of ennoblement, and the Sleeping Beauty, in love with a solitary dreamworld. The excellent Sheila Joon, as a supporting actress, plays three roles that give a sense of the multi-dimensionality of the story. She is Eleanor del Toro, a hardened habitue of Frizer’s drug world, with yet a pulse of sympathy for its entrapped denizens; Nicholas Skeres, one of Frizer’s goons, and the name of one of actual playwright Marlowe’s dodgy comrades; and The Ferryman, a sleazy guide in the city sewers, who takes payment in coin and conducts Marlowe to the underworld drug den where Frizer holds Daphne captivated.

In synch with this variegated narrative, and part of the torrent that carries you headlong through the performance, Sherman’s vibrant language shifts and morphs from hard-boiled, snappy Bogart/Bacall banter, through rhythmic Beat poetics, pulpit fire and brimstone, to gin-soaked Tom Waites-ian monologues, complete with the whine of a bruised melody off in the distance (wonderful sly sonics by Will Fulton). Opening lines intoned by Marlowe, characteristically slouched against a wall, collar up, hat brim down, run:  Once upon a time there was a habit. A habit’a mine. For a time. A time. And once upon a time she hadda have it – the girl she had a habit she was mine. This sort of linguistic bravado might be annoying if it didn’t intimately serve the themes in the piece, echoing the broken time line the play deploys. Harmonious with the whole production, it’s vividly alive to its own artificiality, risking boldly, yet never quite overplaying itself, anchoring in small moments of naturalism that draw you back in. In the play’s intriguing, only pastoral moment (Chris Marlowe did after all bequeath us the lyric poem, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love), Marlowe, Daphne, and side-kick Tommy the Kid (Thomas Kyd? wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) share a star lit night by a campfire. Relaxed for once, Daphne observes – there’s a beam of light coursing through the trees. You can only see it if you blow smoke on it. I wanna live here forever. This eloquent line speaks volumes about Daphne’s character, as well as the play’s central themes.

But wait. Lunar Energy Productions (both Sherman and Gates are founding members) have to mix it up that one notch further. If you think you know everything that can happen in a noiresque rendering of a tale of dark addiction dovetailed with classical allusions and historical references, you might yet be surprised by a sudden eruption of ensemble dancing. Honest to god in-synch dance movements that might happen at a Madonna Super Bowl performance break out, complete with the skeevy, strung out, I-got-the-needful-jones jitters.

The laurels should be lavished, and shared here by all involved in this courageous production. Detailed attention has been paid in every department: scenic (Bishop), sound (Fulton), costume (Kalere Payton), and lighting (Alana Jacoby). The hard working actors deliver handsomely. Compelling leads, Christopher Fahmie and Valerie Redd, are squarely matched with supports Sheila Joon, Michael Markham, and Curry Whitmire. In her conflation of characters Christopher and Philip Marlowe, Sherman is really on to something. This is a hero that could go almost anywhere, uncovering nasty secrets; theatrical gold dust. We would all be lucky to have another installment. Meantime, Chloroform Dreams is knockout.

~~~

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Before Placing Me on Your Shelf, a Lunar Energy production directed and conceived by Philip Gates and featuring the talents of Jonathan Horvath, Caitlin Johnston, Adam Scott Mazer, Josh Odsess-Rubin, Elizabeth Romanski, Theo Salter, and Nadia Sepsenwol, is inextricably tied to the poetry of James Tate.

Nearly all of the dialogue in Before Placing Me on Your Shelf is taken directly from Tate’s poems, and the vision of this play rests in bringing the enigmatic, associative, and absurd worlds created in his poems to life, which is a very interesting concept and makes for an intriguing work of Art.

The play leaves the audience with striking visual impressions and the feeling of having entered a stream of consciousness filled with lofty dreams, lucid nightmares, and heavy symbolism. There is a vague sense of uncomfortable familiarity in this terrain, and the surreal worlds of Tate’s poems are often masked, literally and figuratively, forcing the audience to work at understanding that which contains hidden depths but is never fully revealed.

“Where are we?” asks one character to another, who is given the answer: “We are parallel to everything that matters.” Throughout the play, the characters struggle with questions that center around self-identity, truth and illusion, life and death, sex, and revelation. There is a strong connection between this play and the Theatre of the Absurd, giving Before Placing Me on Your Shelf the feel of avant-garde plays from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

This lingering sense of the Theatre of the Absurd is juxtaposed with its slightly formal, dramatic presentation. Before Placing Me on Your Shelf reveals itself to be an extremely non-traditional play. The play spirals and spins, creating tension as the normal life of these characters begins to slip and crack, suggesting the weird, dark, and surreal worlds lying just underneath the surface.

The actors featured in Before Placing Me on Your Shelf are very talented and give stellar performances. Caitlin Johnson is radiant on the stage, clearly having fun with her playful, sex-obsessed character. Adam Scott Mazer, Theo Salter and Josh Odsess-Rubin are by turns dramatic and seriously funny. They had the somewhat reserved audience laughing uncontrollably at their deliberate and skillful deliveries.

Elizabeth Romanski and Jonathan Horvath shine as a team; as a married couple, they worked together and played off each other in a synergistic manner. Some of their scenes together are among the most provocative in the play; their characters deepen and expand as they attempt to explain themselves to each other. Nadia Sepsenwol, as the mostly silent and masked moth-woman, brings her character to life by tapping into body language and non-verbal communication.

There are visually stunning moments throughout the play. In the beginning sequence, the lights go up, exposing the audience to an empty black-box stage. The back of the stage then opens to reveal a revolving piece of wall. Against the wall is a woman, her face hidden behind a winged and glittery mask, her body fully entangled in a cocoon-like web. Throughout the play, the moth-woman appears at pivotal moments which touch upon disclosure, leaving them with butterflies in their hands and on their bodies.

“Life is as fragile and beautiful as a spider’s web. And the wind is blowing, always blowing.” Lines like this punctuate Before Placing Me on Your Shelf, returning us always to the eye of the poet, as the actors attempt to reveal the many facets of the mysterious and bizarre worlds we live in, by baring and bringing to light the poetry of James Tate:

A Knock on the Door

They ask me if I’ve ever thought about the end of

the world, and I say, “Come in, come in, let me

give you some lunch, for God’s sake.” After a few

bites it’s the afterlife they want to talk about.

“Ouch,” I say, “did you see that grape leaf

skeletonizer?” Then they’re talking about

redemption and the chosen few sitting right by

His side. “Doing what?” I ask. “Just sitting?” I

am surrounded by burned up zombies. “Let’s

have some lemon chiffon pie I bought yesterday

at the 3 Dog Bakery.” But they want to talk about

my soul. I’m getting drowsy and see butterflies

everywhere. “Would you gentlemen like to take a

nap, I know I would.” They stand and back away

from me, out the door, walking toward my

neighbors, a black cloud over their heads and

they see nothing without end.

~~~

Before Placing Me on Your Shelf was originally produced in January 2011 as part of Manhattan Theatre Source’s PlayGround Development Series and ran until August 21, 2011 at The Kraine Theater as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.

Before Placing Me on Your Shelf

Adapted from poems by James Tate

Directed and conceived by Philip Gates

Featuring:

Jonathan Horvath

Caitlin Johnston

Adam Scott Mazer

Josh Odsess-Rubin

Elizabeth Romanski

Theo Salter

Nadia Sepsenwol

www.lunarenergyproductions.com

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