HOT BUTTERED ROLL, Rococo Rodeo, at Live Bait Theater. A frustrating curiosity from 1963, Rosalyn Drexler’s play is intensely performed in this Rococo Rodeo production but dramatically inert. In Hot Buttered Roll, a poor man’s American Buffalo, three lowlifes plot, then perpetrate a kinky scam against a rich, paralyzed old geezer.
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The play is intriguing only in its origins. Associated with the off-off-Broadway experimentation pioneered at the Caffe Cino, Drexler was molded by the Actors’ Studio and the expressionistic excesses of Living Theatre’s Judith Malina and Julian Beck. But judging from Hot Buttered Roll, Drexler’s talent doesn’t match that of her influences. This hour-long work leadenly contrasts the cunning billionaire Corrupt Savage (Howard Hughes?) with the cackling cartoon imbeciles who covet his treasure–a dominatrix-nurse, a burlesque bimbo, and a dumber-than-air thug who tries to get the wealthy codger to adopt him.
