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Lawrence & Holloman (Talonbooks $14.95)
Known as a risk taker, as someone who pushes limits, Morris Panych has provided the opening of the Arts Club Theatre's 35th season with a perplexing speeded-up Godot. It's two annoying guys without a laugh track. Or it's a farcical 'odd couple' about evil born from meaningless lives. Panych's Lawrence & Holloman (Talonbooks $14.95) can be viewed either way. Glib or gloomy.
In no particular time or space, we meet two department store employees who have no reason to like one another. The pushy, self-deluded egotist named Lawrence enjoys browbeating the brown-suited dweeb named Holloman. "Are you actually going to spend the rest of your sad, sorry little life in the pursuit of nothing but being a complete non-entity?"; Lawrence shouts. Holloman is fiendishly passive, secretly orchestrating Lawrence's downfall, feigning fecklessness until his narcissistic tormentor is ultimately helpless. "You realize what you are, don't you,"; says Holloman, triumphant at last. "You're a blind, one-legged paraplegic with no money!"; Lawrence remains brashly and absurdly optimistic, still regarding Holloman as his protége. In a climatic bathtub scene -- shades of The Death of Marat -- a fatal shot is fired. There's lots of sitcom repartee (essentially abusive banter), comical mis-use of language and physically exaggerated behaviour. But we never care about or like either party.
It amounts to strange but forgettable entertainment. 0-88922-392-0
[BCBW WINTER 1998]
In no particular time or space, we meet two department store employees who have no reason to like one another. The pushy, self-deluded egotist named Lawrence enjoys browbeating the brown-suited dweeb named Holloman. "Are you actually going to spend the rest of your sad, sorry little life in the pursuit of nothing but being a complete non-entity?"; Lawrence shouts. Holloman is fiendishly passive, secretly orchestrating Lawrence's downfall, feigning fecklessness until his narcissistic tormentor is ultimately helpless. "You realize what you are, don't you,"; says Holloman, triumphant at last. "You're a blind, one-legged paraplegic with no money!"; Lawrence remains brashly and absurdly optimistic, still regarding Holloman as his protége. In a climatic bathtub scene -- shades of The Death of Marat -- a fatal shot is fired. There's lots of sitcom repartee (essentially abusive banter), comical mis-use of language and physically exaggerated behaviour. But we never care about or like either party.
It amounts to strange but forgettable entertainment. 0-88922-392-0
[BCBW WINTER 1998]
Submitted on July 7, 2003 in By David.
