THE DIRTY PICTURE MAN
Hanging Bog Theatre Company at Cafe Voltaire
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In his one-act The Dirty Picture Man Mark Medoff has fallen victim to the “make your play socially relevant” syndrome, though his writing shows more promise than nearly anything seen on prime time. He creates the intriguingly banal character Stephen Ryder, a nearly featureless, achingly well intentioned schlepp who holds forth on such topics as the intricacies of sweeping a floor. He works as a janitor in a decrepit movie theater, where Bad Splice Cornelius (the projectionist), Tactless Rita (the concessions worker), and the rest of the staff hardly lift a finger. As a member of the Church of the Causative Yeast (“Everything must rise up!”) he believes in doing whatever he does to the best of his ability, making him a true oddity in this world. As his boss exclaims in disbelief, “You’re really cleaning!”
But halfway through the play Rider takes over the management of a porno theater–which of course he does to the best of his ability–and almost immediately begins to question the pathology that leads men to enjoy witnessing women’s humiliation. The question is well worth exploring, but here it seems to arise out of nowhere. Rider’s language suddenly becomes studied. The man who earlier called porno films “naked lady bosom movies” now laments, “Something in us feels the need to degrade women. . . . Do men need help?” The shift drains Rider of personality and turns him into something of a mouthpiece for the playwright. If Medoff could find a way to let the first half of his play, so rich with possibilities, evolve toward a natural conclusion rather than forcing it into a socially relevant corner, he’d have a strong play on his hands.
