Mickey Mouse Meets Rosemary Kennedy in Two Loeb Ex One-Acts

As "Small World Order" and "Monkey Town" are student productions in toto, one cannot help but be impressed by the sweep of such an extensive collaboration. For a work to go from the workshop stages of a playwriting course to a polished and realized stage production in less than six months is no mean achievement.

The program labels the dramas as "a duet of misplaced ideals," forewarning the audience that American values are to be questioned in these plays at a fundamental level. Such questioning occurs throughout in interesting--if not altogether new--ways.

"Small World Order," written by Doug Rand, with score by Adam Levitin, is billed by its creators as a "mega-multimedia demonstration." Entering the theater, patrons are received by a greeter in a Disney visor who gives a standard "welcome to the theme park" speech and escorts each ticket holder to the seating area. This is all very funny the first time it happens, but if you're waiting in line, it grows tedious rather quickly.

Inside the theater, the pace picks up immediately. A laboratory set reveals the head of Walt Disney, played by Lorenzo Moreno '00, flanked by Albert Einstein (Scott Brown '98) and Mary Lou Retton (Kate DeLima '97). Moreno uses his head to wonderful effect, betraying 1,001 emotions throughout the course of the play.

Brown is a wonderfully understated Albert Einstein in his suave argyle sweater vest and white lab coat, enunciating phrases like "workaday wedding" and "wonderful witticism" with a charming Teutonic lisp. DeLima overacts deliberately, and is spot-on, portraying Retton as if she were on crack, which is the only way to portray her.

Einstein and Retton complement each other quite nicely, as do Brown and DeLima. This is a credit to the writing, the casting, and the acting.

Unfortunately, the song lyrics and their accompanying music are not as well integrated within the play as the main characters are. When performed, several of the pieces come off as awkward and unrehearsed. The one exception (which may in fact excuse the rule) was certainly the seamless crowd-favorite "Virtual School," a witty, fast-paced description of the Disney curriculum for children.

The strengths of "Virtual School" are the strengths of "Small World Order": the play works best when it functions as pure satire. But when Rand attempts to seriously critique the Disney Empire for its insensitivity to minorities and women and for its culture of conformity, his dialogue is clunky, overly obvious and heavy-handed.

Another example of satirical excellence is the play-within-the-play, "Disney's Adam and Eve," featuring an effortless Darin Goulet '97, singing in his best "I-m-gettin'-nothin'-for-Christmas" voice, and Jessamyn Conrad '00, a convincing temptress. The serpent, played by Chuck O'Toole '97, also makes an intense cameo.

Like a Disney ride, "Small World Order" proved to be worth waiting in line for--mainly because it was generally amusing--nothing overly outrageous, just plain wholesome entertainment.

If "Small World Order" was a small world after all, "Monkey Town" seemed more like a big huge roller coaster of Tomorrowland. It starts out smoothly enough, with a camera crew preparing Santa (played by Moreno) for a TV show. As the film begins to roll and Santa smiles for the camera, the theater becomes a TV screen, or vice-versa. What follows is an extremely nutty, comedic and exuberantly memorable scene involving Santa and a lobotomized Rosemary Kennedy, who together are preparing to do battle with Communism in America.

Moreno is able to contort his face into every manageable form of laughter, each more convincing than the last. His visage reminds one of a young Jonathan Winters, as does his sense of comic timing. Von Gerbig is hilarious as his foil; her eyes move into every possible direction. She is as artless as he is artful.

Schnairsohn employs a flashing applause sign to help heighten the sense of meta-theatre. This works well during this early stages of the wonderful first scene, but over the course of the play it grows overly gimmicky; ostensibly mimicking the notion of an impossibly receptive live studio audience while in fact becoming nearly dependent on it.

In deftly creating a Leninist's Somerville apartment living room scene so accurate you can almost smell the ramen, set designer Marc Jimenez has come up with a realism equal to much of the characterization and dialogue that Schnairsohn provides for the characters who inhabit the space. Perry is the perfect name for a revolutionary, and Ian is the perfect name for a great lover. Kudos to Sarah Lohrius '98 for providing the smallest of props to add effect to this scene, especially the treasure troll on the mantelpiece, the broken eight-track machine and the portrait of Jimi Hendrix in a cowboy hat.

Jacob, the newly initiated member of the Somerville circle, is played with feeling by Nick Pinto '00. If his lines are delivered a bit too rapidly and uncomfortably at first, his drug- induced hallucinations soon puts this trippiness into context.

The play reaches the climax of its feverish surreality when Santa and Rosemary Kennedy show up at the Somerville pad and take over the apartment, gratuitous water bong and all. Small-time Socialist Perry (O'Toole), held up at gunpoint, still reverts to his typical over-inflated dictatorial style: "If this is some sort of bluff, it's poorly executed."

Because the ending is taken beyond ridiculous, "Monkey Town" falls somewhat short of the high Absurdist standard it sets for itself. The play's closing lines, "you've just been monkeyed around," leave the audience indignant. If Monkey Town is indeed some sort of bluff, it is poorly executed. But if the ending can be written off as a poor attempt at a facile closure, one is willing to forgive the forced nature of the play's denouement and look forward to more plays like "Monkey Town."