The Killer
Tickets from $60 Buy Tickets
Cititour.com Review
The presence of the remarkable actor Michael Shannon has convinced me over the past decade to check out many plays that didn’t initially appeal to my sensibilities (starting with Tracy Letts’ “Bug”), almost always with highly felicitous results. This time, this idiosyncratic performer lured me to Brooklyn’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center, the new home of Theatre for a New Audience, for a three-hour version of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist comedy “The Killer.” And once again, I’m extremely glad I made the trip, despite some pre-conceived reservations.
Shannon plays the “everyman” Berenger, a genuinely melancholy fellow who is temporarily elated when he discovers the presence of “the radiant city” and who then becomes dismayed to discover that a serial killer is terrorizing that town, rendering that neighborhood unlivable. The actor’s display of Berenger’’s mood swings, often on a dime, are a wonder to behold, and the delivery of his final 15-minute quasi-monologue is mostly mesmerizing, even if like some of Ionesco’s script (superbly translated by Michael Feingold), it can be painfully repetitive.
Still, it’s almost impossible not to marvel at just how prescient this 57-year-old play is, with its notions of government surveillance, senseless police brutality, and political apathy. Moreover, one is left pondering some very important philosophical questions about the nature of humanity – questions that are just as fresh as they were six decades ago.
The inventive director Darko Tresnjak (also currently represented in New York by “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”) brilliantly stages the piece, primarily using only the bare stage for the show’s first act and final minutes (accented by Matthew Richards’ striking lighting design). The one major piece of Suttirat Larlarb’s set design is Berenger’s filthy apartment, which seems to materialize out of nowhere shortly before the second of the play’s three acts.
Tresnjak, as usual, also gets the best from his entire cast. Robert Stanton perfectly captures the coldly bureaucratic, seemingly polite nature of the slightly sinister “Architect”; a vampiric-looking Paul Sparks is both eerie and hilarious as Berenger’s quirky best friend Edward; and the always delicious Kristine Nielsen is a most welcome presence as the sarcastic concierge of Berenger’s building. (She also doubles in a small role as the politician “Ma Piper.”). In smaller roles, Stephanie Bunch, Liam Craig, and Noble Shropshire also make valuable contributions.
So, thanks again, Michael Shannon. See you next time!
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.tfana.org/season-2014/killer/overview
Cast
Kristine Nielsen, Michael Shannon, Paul Sparks, Robert Stanton
Open/Close Dates
Opening 5/17/2014
Closing 6/29/2014
Box Office
866-811-4111
Theatre Info
Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Place
Neighborhood: Fort Greene
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Map
Comments
Sign up for our newsletter !