After 14 years in prison for a crime he swears he didn’t commit, Chick returns home to find his flat-broke family under the thumb of his dangerous Unclemike. A rollicking Gothic Western tale of a family isolated by shame, STUPID KID explores power, guilt and the limits of maternal love.
Stupid Kid
Critics
LemonMeter
Reviews: 6
Reviews
It features some outstanding performances and powerful dramatic moments, but is kept from reaching its maximum potency by a script that needs a tighter rewrite.
Director Cameron Watson has taken this offensive play and shaped it into something watchable with excellent actors who, in truth, make it a meaningful event. That there is no one to root for, including everyone in this low-IQ'd family, and the young woman who is so evilly abused by good-ol'-boy Uncle Mike, makes it a rough time. And White's tacked-on "happy" ending doesn't help it.
Director Cameron Watson deftly handles the play's split-second mood flips and proves especially masterful at knowing when to let the heated voices go suddenly quiet. Kate Bergh's costumes and Jeff McLaughlin's set are densely detailed, with the set lending its own wonderful surprise to all of the others. Tears sneak in amid the laughs, but logic gaps yawn open. For a while the action's sheer momentum shoots across them, but as the story reaches its big revelation — triggering a truly white-knuckle response — it leaves a key character's motivations underexplained. The audience's happy daze of overstimulation instantly shifts to a fog of confusion.
Not only has Sharr White written one of the year's best plays in Stupid Kid, it proves one of the most satisfying as well. I haven't applauded so hard (so hard it hurt) in a good long while.
Quickly emerging playwright Sharr White gets even more respect from me with this knockout world premiere which, under the masterful leadership of director Cameron Watson, is simply the best production so far opening in LA this season in a year overflowing with incredible new plays. There are a few holes in White's script which could easily be filled with a little dab of theatrical Spackle, but quite simply, it could never soar to these heights without Watson and his amazing cast of six brilliant actors at the top of their game.
White's writing slowly pulls you into the orbit of this extremely dysfunctional family, keeping you off balance in your expectations until finally hitting you with a powerful emotional catharsis. Cameron Watson's laser focused direction keeps his cast solidly in their characters and moves the action along through the quiet and the tempestuous moments.
It features some outstanding performances and powerful dramatic moments, but is kept from reaching its maximum potency by a script that needs a tighter rewrite.
Director Cameron Watson has taken this offensive play and shaped it into something watchable with excellent actors who, in truth, make it a meaningful event. That there is no one to root for, including everyone in this low-IQ'd family, and the young woman who is so evilly abused by good-ol'-boy Uncle Mike, makes it a rough time. And White's tacked-on "happy" ending doesn't help it.
Director Cameron Watson deftly handles the play's split-second mood flips and proves especially masterful at knowing when to let the heated voices go suddenly quiet. Kate Bergh's costumes and Jeff McLaughlin's set are densely detailed, with the set lending its own wonderful surprise to all of the others. Tears sneak in amid the laughs, but logic gaps yawn open. For a while the action's sheer momentum shoots across them, but as the story reaches its big revelation — triggering a truly white-knuckle response — it leaves a key character's motivations underexplained. The audience's happy daze of overstimulation instantly shifts to a fog of confusion.
Not only has Sharr White written one of the year's best plays in Stupid Kid, it proves one of the most satisfying as well. I haven't applauded so hard (so hard it hurt) in a good long while.
Quickly emerging playwright Sharr White gets even more respect from me with this knockout world premiere which, under the masterful leadership of director Cameron Watson, is simply the best production so far opening in LA this season in a year overflowing with incredible new plays. There are a few holes in White's script which could easily be filled with a little dab of theatrical Spackle, but quite simply, it could never soar to these heights without Watson and his amazing cast of six brilliant actors at the top of their game.
White's writing slowly pulls you into the orbit of this extremely dysfunctional family, keeping you off balance in your expectations until finally hitting you with a powerful emotional catharsis. Cameron Watson's laser focused direction keeps his cast solidly in their characters and moves the action along through the quiet and the tempestuous moments.