In the Mood

There's something to be said for absurdity.

In Satisfaction, a series of selections from three different plays, what the characters say and do often makes no sense. During the two-and-a-half hours of performance we meet a man who is willing to pay for the privilege of staying in a hospital, witness a failed double suicide attempt with plastic bags, and listen to the ramblings of a man obsessed with diseased dogs and ready to fight for the right to sit on a park bench.

Satisfaction: A Trilogy

--A Separate Peace by Tom Stoppard

--Welcome to the Moon by John Patrick Shanley

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

Directed by Jeremy Blumenthal

At the Adams House Kronauer Space

What holds this lengthy and often incoherent collection of dramas together is a series of winning performances from actors who believe so strongly in what they are saying that we can't help nodding our heads in agreement, even when individual lines and actions are incomprehensible.

Though director Jeremy Blumenthal has assembled an excellent cast overall, certain performances are especially appealing. In Shanley's Welcome to the Moon, Marwan Haddad perfectly juxtaposes the roles of an insecure teenager and a man who can't even kill himself successfully, switching from adolescent angst to teary hysteria with ease.

As Ronnie, the perpetual suicide attempt, Haddad cries on command and listens to the misery of others with an endearing sympathy. Ronnie is someone who knows other people's problems so well because he's managed to have many of those same problems himself. And as the infatuated teenager, Haddad reveals many of the silly yet sentimental aspects of puppy love without seeming hokey.

Greg Schaffer gives another of the production's most powerful performances. As the Cowboy in one scene from Welcome to the Moon, even Schaffer's simplest declarations ("Yes, I've killed a man.") are hilarious. In The Zoo Story, his passionate portrayal of Jerry, the embittered New Yorker who believes that "God turned his back on the whole thing some time ago," leaves the audience as fascinated by his theories as it is disgusted by their substance. Schaffer's mimed battles with the landlady's dog are especially superb. He bites off his words and takes pleasure in the revulsion that they produce.

Many of the other actors are limited in stage time or are confined by secondary roles, but Kevin Kain as Peter, the Mister Rogers clone who must listen to Jerry's ramblings, and Elijah Siegler as John Brown, the man who insists on treating a hospital as a hotel, manage to infuse their roles with humor and dignity.

Satisfaction is a triumph of tone, and strong acting more than compensates for any problems in script or pacing.