LIFE AND LIMB
Sadly, the company’s current, rather flaccid production–Life and Limb, an early work by Keith Reddin–contains no such revelations. In fact, it has so many dead spots and fumbled dramatic moments that it’s sometimes hard to believe this play was written by the man responsible for that quintessential send-up of the go-go, gimme-gimme 80s, Big Time, and for last season’s well-crafted adaptation of Bulgakov’s Black Snow at the Goodman.
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At some point these various plays start canceling one another out. The comedy undercuts the sincere portions of the play–we don’t always know whether we’re supposed to laugh at or with the play’s protagonists–and makes some of Reddin’s more heavy-handed imagery seem mawkish. In the first scene Franklin shows his love for Effie by having a big heart with his and her name tattooed on his right arm. A scene later he loses that arm in Korea. Oooooh, I can hear high school English teachers across America coo, symbolism.
In fact, the only time the play really hums along is during the conversations early in the play between Franklin (David Wagner) and Effie (Heidi Huber), in which Reddin gets to show off his ear for dialect. These few short scenes are hints of his future brilliance.
