Heavy Petting

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead

Written by James Kirkwood

Directed by Laith Zawawi

At the Quincy House JCR

Through this weekend

PLOTWISE and character-wise, P.S. Your Cat is Dead is like the final season of The Love Boat. Acting-wise, the play is uneven, but the good actors are the ones who spend the most time onstage anyway. The play itself is a little more than the sum of its parts. It comes off rather well if you can weather the banality of the script and just enjoy the two main characters.

But first things first. The plot is, well, trite, and it's the main liability of the production. Predicting the next development, and sometimes the next line, is about as difficult as passing Moral Reasoning 30. Sometimes it's unavoidable; the next event just pops into your head, and all the dissembling by the actors cannot obscure the set-up for the Jimmy Zoole's (Daniel O'Keefe) next one-liner or prank.

The plot is yet another rehashing of a really old (I mean really old) theme. Right after breaking up with his girlfriend (Eliza Rosenbluth), Zoole captures hapless burglar Vito Antonucci (David Condon) as the latter tries to escape from his apartment. Zoole ties him to the kitchen counter and inflicts a variety of comic insults upon him. They spend most of the play talking, and in the process they find out about themselves and each other, share touching and comic moments, etc.

Zoole spends a lot of time saying and doing things that are calculated to be funny, and usually are. However, O'Keefe knows what parts to look for in his stereotype, and he telegraphs those parts so well that any lameness is overlooked. In one scene, Zoole throws vegetables (yes, vegetables) out of the window after his fleeing ex-girlfriend, shouting derogations that make up part of his terrific repertoire of one-liners. He then stops, turns away from the window, dejected, and says, "Life is a shit sandwich, and every day you take another bite." There are no bad parts, only bad actors. O'Keefe is a good actor.

Condon makes a good straight man, strengthening O'Keefe's role with solid, if uninspired acting. While Vito is sometimes boring, he is the most believable character in the play. (Of course, given the competition...) Condon submerges himself in the character, so his accent and mannerisms are those of Vito. When the part requires him to convince the audience that he's homosexual (did I forget to mention that?), he pulls it off.

The end is the worst part. The climax takes place at least 15 minutes before the end, and by now the audience knows exactly what will happen, so there is no suspense. Playwright James Kirkwood takes out the humor, so the audience is no longer interested. He leaves us inwardly saying, "End, end, end..." I hate that feeling, but leaving early would have been rude.

Despite the flaws, P.S. Your Cat is Dead comes out well. O'Keefe and Condon make a good comic duo, projecting a lot of humor through a mediocre script. They wring sympathy out of moments that could be unbearably hokey. What it boils down to is, do you want surprises or do you want fun? Dead cats are fun.