Actor's Nightmare

Ahhh ... Christopher Durang. He's like the theatre's own Woody Allen.

Excepting, of course, that the theatre already has its own Woody Allen.

... I suppose he's like the theatre's own Catholic Woody Allen.

So, then: The Actor’s Nightmare, that darling of community theatres and one-act festivals everywhere. A script I saw again and again and again throughout speech competitions in high school, placing it firmly alongside Extremities, Lone Star, and 'Night Mother. (I wonder what kids do these days? What are those endless Dramatic Interps that define this generation? Proof? Wit? Doubt? I should go judge just to see.)

Actually, this reading was .... refreshing. Given some distance I was able to see the play differently, with clearer eyes. Too often the play (and a lot of Durang) strikes me as a tiresome exercise in theatre in-jokes combined with intellectual snobbery and more than a soupçon of New-York-Is-The-Center-Of-Reality that relies on us all patting ourselves on the back about how educated and cultured we are. (Need I mention the Catholic guilt and therapy for aforesaid Catholic guilt? .... I needn't.)

But this time through ... boy, if you stripped away the low-budget community theatre trappings and really threw some design at the piece, you could have something, couldn't you? A surreal phantasmagoria that could be a fun head trip for the audience ... a comic Strindberg. Imagine playing more to the Nightmare than the Actor, looking at the mindscape of a guilt-ridden theater aficionado.

... Of course you'd still be left with a slight one-act that doesn't have a story arc or a point other than Catholic guilt and theater references. But it'd be pretty to look at!