First my most sincere heartfelt congratulations to the entire cast of Raised in Captivity now playing at the Renegade Theatre in Hollywood. Alejandro Romero, Krystal Kennedy, Anthony Trexler, Betina Mustain and Marco Dapper are each simply brilliant in the performance of their craft, It was an absolute treat to watch. Now for the story.
Raised in Captivity, written by Nicky Silver, is billed as a dark comedy, a very dark comedy and that is a fair statement. It is replete with flashes of laugh inducing comedic words and actions but it is all woven in some very dark psychology. One example is when the clearly disturbed Sebastian asks his pen pal prison inmate Dylan, “Are you gay?” and Dylan responds smiling, “Not yet.” The response is funny but why is Sebastian becoming emotionally involved with a man serving a life sentence for murder? There are many answers to that question and most of them are revealed as the play goes along.
The show opens at the funeral of the dearly departed mom who was killed by a shower head. The estranged siblings Bernadette and Sebastian are reunited for the funeral of their mother and the tension is palpable, Bernadette’s husband Kip is almost an afterthought simply there to support whatever Bernadette says despite his obvious lack of knowledge and interest. Kip quickly learns what all husbands must learn and that is to say “Yes dear” to everything and then go about doing whatever you want to do.
One way over the top character is the very bizarre Psychologist brilliantly played by Bettina Mustain. Honestly the character was so utterly bizarre at first I felt that it perhaps had violated the rule of suspension of disbelief. But then I recalled my college days when I took five psychology courses each taught by a thoroughly insane professor.
Much of this play is like that. The characters will at first hit you as being just a little too “out there.” But then as you see the stream of information revealed it increasingly begins to make more sense. And frankly I began to relate on some level with many of the characters. At some point it was if I was looking at elements of my family. The story is very provocative in that way.
It is roughly a two hour roller coaster of emotion, revelation and introspection and plenty of comedic relief to keep it fun. It was superbly directed by Alejandro Romero and again I marveled at the amazing skill of the technical crew for visually turning the intimate venue into something far grander.
I did, however, have one objection to this performance and that is the fairly graphic depiction of sex. No nothing was gross or pornographic but in my mind it on two occasions was a bit more than necessary. Now I know that the artsy crowd will sniff and say, “Well sex is natural.” Yeah well so is defecating but I don’t want to see that on stage either. In my opinion sex is indeed beautiful but theatrically it has far more impact when presented by allusion. Allusion draws the audience in deeper than simply showing the details.
That said in totality Raised in Captivity thoroughly deserves your attention. It is playing at The Renegade Theatre, 1514 North Gardner Street, Hollywood, California 90046 now through September 18th. Show times are Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 6:00 pm. Tickets are $20 and reservations may be made by calling: (323) 960-7792 or you may make reservations and purchase tickets on line at: www.plays411.com/raised.
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