'Vampires': Searching for Biting Humor

by Harry Kondoleon directed by Jose Zayas at the Loeb Experimental Theater

So C.C. gets mad at her husband Ian, who claims he's a vampire and promptly bites her on the neck. Then C.C. tells her sister-in-law Pat, who doesn't really listen because she's too busy freaking out that her 13-year-old daughter Zivia has run away from home. Ed, Pat's redneck husband, is still mad at Ian, his brother, because Ian gave Ed's new play a bad review and caused an actor to commit suicide. Zivia, however, has become a heroin addict and enjoys dancing wildly to "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. C.C. calls her old friend Porter, who helped her in drug rehab last year, to help Zivia. Ian comes prancing in and, after much pomp and circumstance, agrees to rewrite Ed's play and put on a private VIP performance in their home. Meanwhile, Zivia and Porter fall in lust and run off together.

Kind of makes you feel better about your family, doesn't it?

This melodramatic, intricate and often incestuous scenario is only the first act of the Loeb X's latest production, "The Vampires." A dark comedy dripping with bad one-liners, pretentious art and enough family bickering to make anyone feel glad to be at college, "The Vampires" builds itself up slowly but surely into an outrageous farce too bizarre even for "Sally Jessy Raphael."

Shortly after the start of the first act, however, it's difficult to tell whether this is going to even be a comedy at all. C.C., played a little over-dryly by Celeste Finn, brings little life to the introductory scenes. She sticks out of her dysfunctional family like a mannequin amidst real flesh-and-blood people. Perhaps the most refreshingly honest moment in all of Act I comes when she turns to her former-lover-turned-brother-in-law Ed, who is begging her to star in his play, and admits, "I really can't act, Ed." Sometimes honesty is the best policy after all.

But against C.C.'s blandness, some of the other characters sparkle with life. The small atmosphere of the Loeb X is the perfect place to appreciate Pat, played up to sublime perfection by Sarah Burt-Kinderman. Her feather-headed neuroticism never dominates the stage--instead it bounces off the other characters with an ease and naturalness found only in real-life depressed Southern wives.

It's too bad that Pat's husband Ed (Erik Amblad) can't seem to muster up genuinely powerful emotions. In a play running at normal speed, he's still stuck moving in 33 RPM. The only real life he shows in all of the first act appears when Pat gives him an overzealous shoulder massage, making him bounce up and down on the couch during his monotonous monologue. What a pity that the life he possesses in this scene is drawn entirely from another person's action.

On a different note, Pat and Ed's daughter Zivia--Samara Levenstein at her wide-eyed and solitary-moshing best--adds a delightfully original flavor to the show. With her crazy mop of red hair, her rich commanding speaking voice and her strictly Allston Beat wardrobe, Zivia shoots looks as darkly and announces religious comings as coldly as any typical 13-year-old heroin addict can.

But the first half of the play belongs completely and solely to Ian. As Padraic O'Reilly dances and prances around the stage, whirling past the sputtering Ed and twirling around the nervous Pat, the audience is often brought to laughter from his cartoon-like demeanor. How could this play be anything but a comedy with someone so blatantly melodramatic, whose wit is even sharper than his bite? More importantly, how could he NOT be a vampire, since he shines with energy and vicious vivaciousness as several of his human counterparts struggle to keep their own pulses going?

Once the second act gets going, however, everything in "The Vampires" seems to fall into place. Clad in the ridiculously patriotic costumes C.C. has designed for Ed's play, everyone in the family suddenly becomes a fountain of angry complaints pent up for much too long. This brings life to C.C., force to Ed, humanity to Ian (well, a little bit) and fury to Pat. Add all this to Leeore Schnairsohn's slick-radio-announcer-turned-Jimmy-Swaggart version of Porter and his born-again bride Zivia, and you've got an ending too deliciously and devilishly clever to spoil in a mere review. The true meaning of the title is revealed around this point: it's not just that Zivia is sucking the life out of Pat and Porter out of Zivia in turn--every single member of the family is living off the blood of every single other member.

All in all, "The Vampires" takes some time to really get rolling. But once it hits full swing, the play's true strengths start shining brightly enough to hide its more glaring weaknesses. This is the perfect show to appreciate during the summer, when we all can take a moment and realize that the desire to control the rest of our family, or even suck the life out of them, is universal. As one of the signs in Ian and C.C.'s house reads, "God sends the meat and the Devil cooks." It's time to enjoy a little summer barbecue.