Behind the Iron Door

ENTERTAINING MR. SLOAN resembles electric shock therapy. One jolt causes momentary discomfort, but the current from a steady series of joits achieves a radical transformation. This play is not meant to delight us with raw sparks of wit and entertainment. It's more of a therapeutic treatment, which director Paul Warner has created to force a brutal awareness upon the vulnerable audience. The result leaves us dazed as we retrack our way from the play's hidden theater, which Warner dubs. "Behind the Iron Door of Adams House."

All facets of the play--the acting the plot and the setting--pivot around a single vision of the stagnancy and decadence of human relationships. It's a heavy responsibility to animate this vision, and it's an even heavier burden for the audience to observe if lot two-and-a half hours in a small basement room at a corner of the labyrinthine passageways below Adams House.

But there are many lights burning at the end of this tunnel Warner brings a searing intimacy to Joe Orton's dark British comedy. The room's metal pipes cinder-block walls, and shack-like closet house the cluttered furnishings of a living room, the play's only set Seated in three sections around the room, the audience watches the play on the same level as the performers. Constantly dashing about and moving the furniture, the cast members treat the spectators like intruders.

Caught in the middle of their crisp movements the audience feels the repercussions of the characters volatile emotions. Objects the characters throw at each other rebound off the spectators and the actors station themselves around the room regardless of their visibility.

This crowding of the audience and actors, the discomfort of the room's size and location, and the stifling nature of the plot all serve as physical manifestations of the play's theme of oppression. It's an unusual opportunity to be able to witness such a dense dramatic experience in which the actors must be propelled by a continuous energy supply. They are never given an opportunity to lose their momentum as the complex plot unfolds.

ALL FOUR CHARACTERS are refuse from society--unwanted and lonely Mr. Sloan (Mike Samols) enters the sheltered lives of Kath, a middle-aged woman: her crotchety old father Kemp and her effeminate brother Ed. Kath and her father live in a tenement that borders on a dump, and emotionally their lives are steeped in trash and decay as well. The play delves into the complex lover's triangle that develops between Sloan, Kath--who becomes his land-lady and Ed who becomes his employer. To round off the plot, Kemp is the only witness who can prove that Sloan murdered the old father's boss.

Dripping with innate violence, Samols's Sloan consumes the room with his cerie presence. His physical rhythm hypnotizes us--as it does Kath and Ed. who both fall hopelessly in love with him. Always tensed and laconic, Sloan quietly manipulates the frantic brother and sister who desperately need him to fill the aching voids in their lives.

As Kath, 42-year-old Mary Ann Bergonzi portrays with remarkable depth and understanding a desparate woman's attempt to find love Her surface simple-mindedness contrasts dynamically with her constant hyperactive movements, eliciting pity for her abject loneliness Kath epitomizes a woman in search of someone to love.

Amidst her blatant passion for Sloan, various other subplots unfold--including the homosexual relationship between Ed and Sloan and the father's recognition of Sloan. All these developments climax in one explosive monologue by Sloan, revealing his depraved and destructive past. Samols leaves us breathless from this speech and his ensuing violence, which finally lead Kath and Ed to a brutal fight over Sloan.

NICHOLAS LAWRENCE as Ed successfully reveals an abhorrence of women and permanent attachments. David Wingrove as Kemp movingly depicts a pawn in his family's sexual struggle. Constantly walking on and looking for suppositories, the father becomes an emblem for the absolute stagnancy of the character's lives, and nothing can relieve his discomfort or ours.

The depth of these performances is frightening. Too peculiar to be stereotypical, the roles reveal one family's bizarre attempt to barter for an outsider's affections. Warner has gathered an excellent case, enabling novice Samols and professional Bergonzi to give equally riveting performances.

Warner's vision of bleak selfishness pervades the play, enabling it to maintain its hold on the audience's malleable attention. Since the performance does not start until all the ticket-holders arrive, the audience is ushered into a solitary room--shocked into submission. Captives in the basement, the cast monopolizes attention. At the end, we are numb--shaken from the intrusion into protective shells. And saying we enjoyed the performance would be an insult to the production, since its message only affirms the vulnerability of our affections.