Theater Review (NYC): The Strangerer by the Mickie Maher

(This review was originally featured on Blogcritics.org)

The Strangerer is a 90-minute attempt to murder Jim Lehrer that goes nowhere. The premise of a theater-loving, existential hero Bush is absurd, and the format of reinterpreting the first 2004 Presidential Debate only adds to the absurdity. What is the point of committing such a pointless, arbitrary act for the purposes of theater? The point, my fellow Americans, is that the premise of The Strangerer demands it, a fact of which playwright Mickie Maher was only too self-conscious.

This experimental work of meta-theater, which coyly plays with the fundamental conventions of theater and examines the theatricality of life outside the black box, has arrived Off-Broadway in New York on the strength of its almost unilateral raves by Chicago critics. Its fate will be a litmus test for the future of creativity in New York theater. For as enticing a labyrinth of themes as the play presents to theater-minded New Yorkers who know what they’re looking for, it will be an alienating, exhausting bore for just about anyone else.

The same was said, of course, when Waiting for Godot opened. The Strangerer also alludes to a particularly experimental production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that provided the fictional inspiration for this version of the Bush/Kerry debate. It’s a fitting parallel for a play that continues in the grand tradition of a Beckett/Albee baffler, a format that has drawn as much praise for its structural innovations as it has criticism for its obtuseness.

But the play’s got creativity up the wazoo to back up its weighty goals. It takes the presidential debate format, one of the most overtly staged and artificial contemporary theatrical practices, and turns it into a wildly unpredictable and constantly shape-shifting event. It inverts our commonly held beliefs about figures we've known for years. The absurdity of the evening raises the question: how far from The Strangerer does the subtext of an actual debate actually stray?

On the political end, it’s taken two of the most important world figures of the past decade—figures whose mannerisms have caused us to tune them out instead of challenge them—and forces us to listen to them speak as nakedly as possible. It’s the longest 90-minute play I’ve ever attended. No matter how aware you are of the intellectual nuances of the play, The Strangerer’s sheer banality in its first half begs you to tune out to some degree. The twist is that the actual dialogue of the play directly attacks the audience for doing just that. It’s very hard to tune out a mockingly narcoleptic Kerry (played by Maher himself) and a Bush (Guy Massey) who, despite using the same grammatical weaknesses we’ve heard for the past eight years, has explicitly promised to commit a murder before the night is over.

Yet, the play’s early boringness is precisely what will turn some attendees away. The play’s creators, who do not include a director, underestimate just how adept an audience is at zoning out. Some critics in Chicago called the play nearly flawless, but in order for a play to be perfect, I don’t think it can by its very nature induce its audience to engage in exactly the kind of activity (or inactivity) it purports to oppose. If the play fails with a much less intellectual and insular New York audience than it had in Chicago—and the show I attended had multiple empty seats—it will be because of its creators’ hubris.

That doesn’t discount the fact that The Strangerer, which takes its name and inspiration from Bush’s brief encounter with Camus two summers ago, remains one of the better existential comedies of recent memory. The debate on the method of murder is undeniably farcical, and features props of switchblades, guns, kerosene, cyanide, a pillow, and a Balinese kris meant for ritualistic murder. But the play is rife with contradictions inherent in theater, not to mention in general human existence. What is the value of excessive, unapologetic performance, and what gets lost under the guise of maintaining an air of mystery? Is it worth living a boring, neutral life? How can an act that is horrifically destructive be considered entertaining?

Questions like these abound in The Strangerer, and the play answers none of them. Its ingenuity is virtually unparalleled in today’s mainstream New York theater. The question is whether Theatre Oobleck’s faith in its audience pays off.

---

Through August 2. The Strangerer was written by Micky Maher. It stars Maher (Kerry), Guy Massey (Bush) and rotates Colm O'Reilly and Brian Shaw (Lehrer). Set design by Maher. Lighting Design by Martha Bayne. Sound Design by Chris Schoen. Tickets can be purchased at Telecharge. The play runs 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.