Home  Entertainment Reviews Review: 'Bug' by Tracy Letts (Sept. 10)
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Review: 'Bug' by Tracy Letts (Sept. 10) |
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Written by Barry Gaines
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Monday, 10 September 2007 |
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“Bug,” the play by Tracy Letts at the Vortex, is the most bizarre love story I have ever encountered. Simply stated, “Bug” asks the age-old question, can delusional paranoia with schizophrenic tendencies become the basis for love? According to the play’s characters, the answer is an explosive yes. And the main characters in the Vortex production are effectively portrayed.
Our heroine, Agnes, has more miles on her than a rural school bus, and she too has been around the block too many times. Her abusive ex-husband, Goss, has just been released from prison after serving two years for armed robbery, and—despite a restraining order—is heading her way for a connubial visit. Agnes lives in a seedy Oklahoma motel room, and she dulls the pain of her loneliness with abundant liquor and rock cocaine she freebases out of a pipe. She and Goss had a son, but almost ten years ago the six-year-old disappeared from a grocery story. Things have not gone well since. But they look up when domesticated lesbian R. C. brings Peter to her friend Agnes’s room. Peter is also a lost soul, haunted by a past that he slowly reveals throughout the play. Peter and Agnes share rock-pipe hits and sort of “hit it off.” He spends the night, and after the pair make love Peter bolts up in bed—stark naked—looking for a bug that bit him. Agnes—naked too—slowly becomes obsessed with bugs as well. Thus the title. Director Aaron Worley and his actors have not flinched from the play’s nudity nor its violence nor its psychological weirdness. The plot is more carefully constructed than might at first appear, and I don’t want to spoil it with more detail. Perhaps everything that has happened is a government plot. Conspiracy theory and paranoia—perhaps the room is bugged! Miguel Martinez, menacing in a horseshoe moustache, plays Goss with gusto, but Rosa Robinson as R. C. has an accent that is at times unintelligible. Justin Lenderking does a fine job of slowly revealing Peter’s madness. It is Emily Carvey as Agnes who is most impressive. She makes her downtrodden character sympathetic; having lost so much already, why wouldn’t she sacrifice more for love? The monologue in which she puts the whole plot together is riveting. “Bug” is repellant but fascinating. If You Go WHAT: “Bug,” by Tracy Letts WHEN: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 6 p.m. through September 30 WHERE: The Vortex Theatre, 2004½ Central, SE HOW MUCH: $12. Reservations 247-8600. CONTAINS NUDITY.
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About Reviewers D.S. Crafts (Website) Composer Daniel Steven Crafts came to New Mexico from San Francisco where he had hosted a classical music radio program on KPFA. His first commission from opera star Jerry Hadley, "The Song & the Slogan" based on texts by Carl Sandburg, was made into a TV program for the PBS network and aired nationally in 2004 and won an Emmy for Best Music. His latest opera La Llorona is a collaboration with novelist Rudolfo Anaya based on his play "The Season of La Llorona." Mr. Crafts is currently working on another commission from Jerry Hadley for a piece about the American Southwest which includes texts by Rudolfo Anaya and V.B. Price. Two CDs of his music, Contemporaries (short, satirical keyboard works) and ARIAS (excerpts from his various operas) have been released on the BACAT label in San Francisco.
David Steinberg David Steinberg has covered state government, the courts, city and county government in Santa Fe for the Albuquerque Journal. He's been an arts writer for the past 20 years, and serves as the book editor, for the Journal. Over the years, he's also acted in plays, sung in choruses and played trumpet.
Jennifer Noyer Jennifer Noyer has been writing dance reviews for the Albuquerque Journal for 17 years, as well as contributing articles for Dance Magazine and other art journals. She trained in dance with Hanya Holm in New York City and Colorado Springs, and studied several dance techniques at the graduate level at the University of Michigan. After teaching dance at Wayne State University she entered and completed a Masters Degree in Humanities there. In New Mexico Ms. Noyer has taught, directed, and choreographed contemporary dance for several years. Her writing on dance includes a monograph accompanying the video of choreographer Bill Evens’ ballet “The Legacy.” An overview of Evans’s world wide career, it was written and published during his tenure at the University of New Mexico. Ms. Noyer’s studies in the humanities, and her studio dance work influence her approach to dance as an integrative art form in the United States.
Barry Gaines Barry Gaines has taught Shakespeare in the University of New Mexico English Department for over twenty-five years and has received two outstanding teaching awards. He has written theater reviews for the Journal since 2000. He has attended theater all over the world including Shakespeare productions in Russia, South Africa, Denmark, and Poland. He has also served as literary advisor for two professional theater companies and written performance reviews for Shakespeare Quarterly. Gaines has taken two years of acting with Paul Ford and appeared in small parts in three plays at the Albuquerque Little Theater. He believes that he is probably a better reviewer than actor.
Joanne Sheehy Hoover Joanne Sheehy Hoover, music critic emeritus of the Albuquerque Journal, has written for NPR, PBS, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Symphony, among others. She has also been a music lecturer for the Smithsonian Associates and a music critic and arts writer for The Washington Post. She was director of the Levine School of Music, one of the country’s largest community music schools, in Washington, D. C. 1980-1993. She and her husband moved to Corrales, New Mexico in July 1993. Also a poet, her fifth collection, “Einstein in New Mexico,” was published in 2002.
Marissa Greenberg Marissa Greenberg is a member of the faculty of the University of New Mexico English Department, where she teaches Shakespeare and early English literature. A prior guest reviewer for the Albuquerque Journal, Greenberg will be reviewing theater while Barry Gaines is out of town. She also composed and edited the program notes for last year’s Albuquerque Shakespeare Festival and has written performance reviews for Shakespeare Bulletin. A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, Greenberg has been performing and studying drama for most of her life. She is thrilled to have this opportunity to review for the Journal.
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