WILHELM REICH IN HELL
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Nothing if not ambitious, this is one of the most physically and intellectually challenging dramas to come along this year. Combining vaudeville slapstick, commedia dell’arte, surreal fantasy, straight drama, pop-culture satire, and musical theater, pop sci-fi author Wilson seeks to re-create the consciousness of philosopher, therapist, anarchist, and alleged loony Wilhelm Reich, whose writings were burned by the U.S. government in the 1950s and who eventually was convicted of contempt of court and died in a U.S. prison.
Unfortunately, in order to allow Reich his say, Wilson places him in that most obvious of theatrical locations, a courtroom in hell. Here he must defend his allegedly insane ideas against a bevy of madmen. Prosecuting Reich are the Marquis de Sade and Luitpold von Sacher- Masoch, portrayed here as circus comedians. A wide array of witnesses includes a punk rock group called the American Medical Association, who deliver their diagnoses of Reich’s insanity in aggressive, grating song. Lording over the proceedings is a white-faced circus ringmaster who insists that for Reich to exonerate himself he must prove everyone else–the court, society at large, the jury, us–insane.
All the speechifying seriously detracts from some beautifully coordinated ensemble acting under the direction of the rapidly maturing Charles Harper, who creates as polished a vision of anarchy as one can imagine. Particularly delectable are Karen Hough’s hilariously bad-ass take on the Marquis de Sade and Rob Kimmel’s commandingly evil, oily ringmaster. They help to spin the swirling eddy of ideas at the heart of Wilson’s script into motion, but the mental dizziness we experience by the play’s end does not come from any rush of new ideas. After the show I overheard someone at the store next door, program in hand, ask: “Got any Tylenol?”
