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Boston Court's 'Courting Vampires' Is a Troubled Courtship
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Carey Peters and Maya Lawson. Photo by Ed Krieger.
Laura Schellhardt's "Courting Vampires" probably won't appeal to fans of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer" or the "Twilight" series which served up vampires as a way of excusing female sexual desire. Making its world premiere at Boston Court in Pasadena, Schellhardt's play is a revenge play that also excuses female sexual behavior and aims a vengeful eye at men.
Kurt Boetcher's set is a series of file cabinet drawers with labels laid out like a dark gray grid on the floor. Some can be pulled out for use as tables, stands and eventually an empty grave. On this unusual tiled floor we meet Nina (Maya Lawson). Blond, with a slightly nasal voice, she is jumping and dancing to fireworks dressed in one of those pseudo bohemian layered dresses with leggings underneath and worn out faded pink ballet slippers.
In contrast, costume designer E.B. Brooks puts her older dark-haired sister Rill (Carey Peters) in a stiff dark gray jacket--looking like something inspired by both a military uniform and a straight jacket. She wears a pleated gray skirt and dark hose and sensible shoes. It's as if Rill, pronounced like real, never got over the Catholic school girl phase.
"If you watch the details, you keep the day," Rill explains as she recites the day and time and sequence something occurred.
With her monotone voice and stiff social interactions, Rill could be a poster woman for Asperger syndrome. Think of Lilith Sternin as played by Bebe Neuwirth in the old TV series "Frasier" and "Cheers."
While Rill has a hard time relating to anyone, particularly to men and tends to want sequences and order, Nina is a free spirit and has no problems with seduction and drunken sexual liaisons with men. When she sickens, she is positive that the STD she has, a blood disease, was contracted from a particular man and Rill and Nina set out to get revenge, to murder him legally.
If you've done the science and the math, you probably know that Nina has been sleeping around with not only various men, but all their sex partners. Certainly as an adult, she has equal responsibility in the prevention of disease and the risks of sexual encounters. Schellhardt's script never gives us the idea that Nina was forced into this sexual contact, rather that she sought them out. The man (Bo Foxworth) is deemed a vampire who preyed on Nina. In this respect, Rill doesn't get real: She doesn't hold Nina responsible for her promiscuous lifestyle. Is this because Rill still sees Nina as a child that needs to be protected?
Can this be blamed on their helpless agoraphobic father (also Foxworth who plays all the other roles)? On the absence of a mother figure? Directo Jessica Kubzansky wisely doesn't attempt to give us the answers. The actors, particularly Foxworth who is required to play to many roles, do a competent job yet none of the characters are really that sympathetic. The father is pathetic. The lover is sleazy. Peters' best moments as Rill are when she attempts to practice the art of seduction on her co-worker Gil (Foxworth) and yet that wildly humorous segment seems out of place. Lawson isn't so believable as a dancer and left me wondering if this was just an aspect of Nina's blindness to her own shortcomings.
The action is played out in "the courtroom of Rill's mind," and there will be a consideration of real law in a discussion after the Sunday, 31 May, 2 p.m. performance, "Truth on Trial." There have been criminal cases involving HIV transmission, but transmission can be characterized as intentional, reckless or accidental.
While not a perfect, "Courting Vampires" does attempt to address the anger and frustration of a sibling when a loved one contracts a death sentence by disease. Instead of looking at a real case, it looks at a peculiar oddball family and manages to entertain in parts while not quite making a cohesive argument.
"Courting Vampires," The Theatre@Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor, Pasadena. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. $32. Ends June 7.
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