Black Comedy, Gender Switch Make a Dramatic Winner

Black comedy finds a good home in the Loeb Experimental Theatre with "Baby with the Bathwater." Written by Christopher Durang, the play chronicles the life of a young boy raised to be a girl--or at least that's what the small prompts that are printed in the newspapers say. Really, "Baby with the Bathwater" is about insanity and the audience meets a whole crew of wonderfully played insane characters in an insanely wonderfully set.

Before the play even starts it is easy to recognize a winner. The set is built like sculpture more suited to the Science Center than a stage. Tall columns stand at the sides of the stage where trees or flats would go in any other play. Each piece is made of solid, embracing color which balances out the uniform black backdrop perfectly.

Some of the background scenery is suspended from black lines, making the green geometric shapes above the players' heads float with an eerie nature similar to that of the play itself. Beyond being bold, the greenery in the flyspace lends itself well to being trees in the park.

The giants on the stage were the main attraction, however. At the shows opening, Michael Stone introduces his character, John, with an uncanny ability to make his face seem more insane than the character he is playing. Although he seems to start with a stiff, unnatural pose and tone of voice, it becomes apparent as the show progresses that stiffness belongs to the character and not the actor. That stiffness plays an important part in ironing down the characters' drug addiction and even making them funny.

Emily Drugge, who plays John's wife Helen, also needs to warm up into the role. After the first few minutes, however, every bit of herself disappears, leaving the harsh and completely mad Helen.

The character of Helen is a sort of straight foil to that of John, despite Helen's considerable mental problems. Strangely enough, the connection that Drugge and Stone form through these characters does manage to be family-like, giving the audience no choice but to believe it.

But Drugge and Stone are not the heart of the stage crew. Co-director Emily Gardiner, playing three different completely different roles, quickly finds her way to the forefront of every scene. Gardiner apparently has no difficulty switching between completely different characters. Her change from a twisted Mary Poppins to a plain mother with mannerisms she seems to have stolen directly from a suburb is extremely impressive.

Gardiner has a stage presence above and beyond that of the other players, and as the play continues she becomes a demonic guardian angel to the child in the story. Surprisingly, the child doesn't get a real face or body in the play until the last few scenes, while trying to come to terms with the parents who raised him to be something he is not.

Alexander Pak plays the character of the grown baby with youthful energy and an outward appearance of wonder. In a scene with a therapist, Pak's character move forward toward the audience between short pieces. This scene is an excellent example of the stage movement the directors include.

With each piece or session of the therapy Pak moves around, following spots on the stage, each made with a single light. When the light shines down on Pak's face, the shadows do more and build the character's independence gained from the therapy. By the time Pak works his way to the front of the stage, his character is much stronger, if not less insane.

In fact, the texture donated by the lighting is an integral factor in the success of the play. Lighting designer John A. Garofolo has complete control over the environment on the stage. He can twist the lights around to make the oddly-angled pieces of scenery ominous, mysterious or blatantly normal. The shadows created by the light add more to the atmosphere than the set does by itself, making the blue pieces in back rounded perfectly and the red pieces in front like giants taking the part of the audience.

The cast are a multi-purpose crew. The list of the cast and production staff of "Baby with the Bathwater" is littered with re-used names from those serving in more than one capacity. Because of this, it is no surprise that the group seemed to work as a solid team even more so than most theatrical groups. It is this fact that truly makes "Baby with the Bathwater" an impressive, if not superb example of what Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theater can do.