The Los Angeles premiere of an outrageous comedy with a killer heart by acclaimed British playwright and provocateur Philip Ridley. In this viciously funny satire flecked with horror, Ollie and Jill want to tell you about their dream home. But some of the things they did to get it… well, you might find them kind of shocking. Just in time for Halloween: Mary Poppins meets Flip This House meets Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” in Ridley’s playful commentary on consumerism in the age where enough is never enough. Door Number 3 presents a visiting production at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles, 90025; Oct. 19 – Nov. 18; $17-$32; (310) 477-2055 x2; www.dn3theatre.org
Radiant Vermin
Reviews
Funny and appalling in equal measure, what makes this play additionally engaging for the viewer is that they don't get to just sit back and judge. True to Ridley's “in-yer-face” style, the fourth wall is broken, as all the characters directly address the audience, creating the feeling that they are colluding. It produces some wonderfully uncomfortable laughter and silences.
The cast is exemplary... Sound and lighting design by Chris Moscatiello and Bosco Flanagan, respectively, are first rate.
RADIANT VERMIN is a tale both dark and comic, both fantastic and intimate. It speaks to the idea of what someone will do for their family and what someone will do for their greed. This production illuminates those themes with style and grace and creates a stellar first production for a company that I hope to see more from very soon. Right now, you should go see this production as fast as you can because it's a great production of a truly terrible story and the equitably despicable characters within it.
Radiant Vermin has a lot going for it and will appeal to anyone that enjoys dark comedy and tonal dissonance. The resolution doesn't end up leaving the strongest lasting impression, though the clever fourth wall break works well enough and there's a scene or two where it starts to take itself a bit more seriously than is warranted, in general, it's a fiendish comedy with a cast of charming and memorable characters.
Director Tim True does an expert job of staging on a very spare set that consists of stairs and poles, symbolizing an unfinished house. He establishes just the proper pace for unfolding a procession of nefarious acts, and he elicits fascinating, focused, and fully involved performances from his cast. - RECOMMENDED
Door Number 3's world premiere of Philip Ridley's RADIANT VERMIN receives a strong mounting with Tim True expertly directing his very talented cast in a quick-paced tale of greed and its consequences. Britt Harris and Kapil Talwalkar bring their all in virtuoso performances as Jill and Ollie, breaking the fourth wall to describe, in great detail, the happenings between first learning of the dream home offer to the present with their newborn Benji celebrating his first birthday. Ridley's very smart script has Harris and Talwalker spouting streams of consciousness, at times overlapping in sync. Their timing together with their machine gun deliveries' simply brilliantly.
Although set someplace in the UK, the parallels to U.S. and other Western excess need no elaboration. As the world divides ever more sharply between the haves and the have-nots, Radiant Vermin will undoubtedly become more and more relevant with each passing year, reminding us of the Faustian bargain we have agreed to when we seek our creature comfort. It's noteworthy that Ridley specifies that this is a government program because politics is ultimately at the base of such large geopolitical development decisions. Government historically has determined class privilege by virtue of tax policy, restrictive covenants, zoning, redlining, ghettoizing, tolerating homelessness, failure to build affordable housing, placement of highways, schools, parks, commercial and industrial development. The recent tax reform that the Republican Congress passed, for example, posits the further accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands, and the emergence of ever more “exclusive” housing for the rich. At whose expense? Any visit to America's Skid Row or to our nation's derelict schools will easily answer that question. Interestingly, Ridley also brings in a religious element, as if to implicate parts of the faith community in the contract on the poor. That aspect reminded me of Mr. and Mrs. Peachum in the Threepenny Opera, using Biblical verses to sanction their lordship over a mob of London beggars.
Ridley's all-out assault on capitalism's predatory values keeps heating up as the play goes on, aided by the tour de force performances of Talwalker and Harris, who dazzle as they handle the playwright's rat-tat-tat dialogue with amazing skill and ease, sometimes firing it at each other, other times directly at the audience.
Radiant Vermin is brilliantly staged by Door Number 3 artistic director, Tim True, on a multilevel unit set by Pete Hickok (with excellent lighting by Bosco Flanagan) that represents the unfinished house complete with roof joists, wall studs, and raw wooden stairs. There are no props and the energetic leading couple mime everything. Mr. Talwalkar and Ms. Harris are nothing short of breathlessly brilliant and they engage the audience directly to tell their story, peering straight into eyes and enlisting responses. I even had my hand shook. Not even halfway into the two-act play, I marveled at the line load that the actors deliver to flawless perfection. In a second act tour de force, the two young players deliver a garden party for their year-old son that lurches out of control. No less than four quirky neighbor couples and a pair of teenagers are rendered in rotating sets to hilarious, breathless perfection.
Director Tim True's stated intention for his company is to do plays that have a strong theatricality, in this he has certainly succeeded and Door Number 3 should prove to be a distinctive addition to LA's theatrical landscape. Classy and well realized. Recommended
Funny and appalling in equal measure, what makes this play additionally engaging for the viewer is that they don't get to just sit back and judge. True to Ridley's “in-yer-face” style, the fourth wall is broken, as all the characters directly address the audience, creating the feeling that they are colluding. It produces some wonderfully uncomfortable laughter and silences.
The cast is exemplary... Sound and lighting design by Chris Moscatiello and Bosco Flanagan, respectively, are first rate.
RADIANT VERMIN is a tale both dark and comic, both fantastic and intimate. It speaks to the idea of what someone will do for their family and what someone will do for their greed. This production illuminates those themes with style and grace and creates a stellar first production for a company that I hope to see more from very soon. Right now, you should go see this production as fast as you can because it's a great production of a truly terrible story and the equitably despicable characters within it.
Radiant Vermin has a lot going for it and will appeal to anyone that enjoys dark comedy and tonal dissonance. The resolution doesn't end up leaving the strongest lasting impression, though the clever fourth wall break works well enough and there's a scene or two where it starts to take itself a bit more seriously than is warranted, in general, it's a fiendish comedy with a cast of charming and memorable characters.
Director Tim True does an expert job of staging on a very spare set that consists of stairs and poles, symbolizing an unfinished house. He establishes just the proper pace for unfolding a procession of nefarious acts, and he elicits fascinating, focused, and fully involved performances from his cast. - RECOMMENDED
Door Number 3's world premiere of Philip Ridley's RADIANT VERMIN receives a strong mounting with Tim True expertly directing his very talented cast in a quick-paced tale of greed and its consequences. Britt Harris and Kapil Talwalkar bring their all in virtuoso performances as Jill and Ollie, breaking the fourth wall to describe, in great detail, the happenings between first learning of the dream home offer to the present with their newborn Benji celebrating his first birthday. Ridley's very smart script has Harris and Talwalker spouting streams of consciousness, at times overlapping in sync. Their timing together with their machine gun deliveries' simply brilliantly.
Although set someplace in the UK, the parallels to U.S. and other Western excess need no elaboration. As the world divides ever more sharply between the haves and the have-nots, Radiant Vermin will undoubtedly become more and more relevant with each passing year, reminding us of the Faustian bargain we have agreed to when we seek our creature comfort. It's noteworthy that Ridley specifies that this is a government program because politics is ultimately at the base of such large geopolitical development decisions. Government historically has determined class privilege by virtue of tax policy, restrictive covenants, zoning, redlining, ghettoizing, tolerating homelessness, failure to build affordable housing, placement of highways, schools, parks, commercial and industrial development. The recent tax reform that the Republican Congress passed, for example, posits the further accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands, and the emergence of ever more “exclusive” housing for the rich. At whose expense? Any visit to America's Skid Row or to our nation's derelict schools will easily answer that question. Interestingly, Ridley also brings in a religious element, as if to implicate parts of the faith community in the contract on the poor. That aspect reminded me of Mr. and Mrs. Peachum in the Threepenny Opera, using Biblical verses to sanction their lordship over a mob of London beggars.
Ridley's all-out assault on capitalism's predatory values keeps heating up as the play goes on, aided by the tour de force performances of Talwalker and Harris, who dazzle as they handle the playwright's rat-tat-tat dialogue with amazing skill and ease, sometimes firing it at each other, other times directly at the audience.
Radiant Vermin is brilliantly staged by Door Number 3 artistic director, Tim True, on a multilevel unit set by Pete Hickok (with excellent lighting by Bosco Flanagan) that represents the unfinished house complete with roof joists, wall studs, and raw wooden stairs. There are no props and the energetic leading couple mime everything. Mr. Talwalkar and Ms. Harris are nothing short of breathlessly brilliant and they engage the audience directly to tell their story, peering straight into eyes and enlisting responses. I even had my hand shook. Not even halfway into the two-act play, I marveled at the line load that the actors deliver to flawless perfection. In a second act tour de force, the two young players deliver a garden party for their year-old son that lurches out of control. No less than four quirky neighbor couples and a pair of teenagers are rendered in rotating sets to hilarious, breathless perfection.
Director Tim True's stated intention for his company is to do plays that have a strong theatricality, in this he has certainly succeeded and Door Number 3 should prove to be a distinctive addition to LA's theatrical landscape. Classy and well realized. Recommended