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Watching "The House of Yes" is like looking at a gaping, oozing wound. The action of Wendy McLeod's dark comedy consists, so to speak, of poking the wound. That way it can't heal, and it keeps on suppurating and bleeding.
Mother is arch. Daughter is obsessive, delusional and homicidal. One son is severely klutzy. The other son is functional, mostly, but he has this repetition compulsion when it comes to his homicidal sister. This latter son brings his fiancee down from New York to Washington, D.C., to meet the family. The fiancee does not have a good time.
As pathology has a way of doing, MacLeod's festering family has been exercising a peculiar fascination ever since its premiere in 1990. It was turned into a movie starring Parker Posey nine years ago. Theater Schmeater produced it here in 2003. And now Absurd Reality Theatre has revived it at the Odd Duck Studio.
With a play as essentially unpleasant as "House of Yes," one needs to shift focus. The situation (neurosis, psychosis and incest) and the action (insults, quips and seductions) are appalling. So ... how's the acting?
Director Tellier Killaby's cast pokes the wound with mixed results. The women get into ruts: one is arch and supercilious, another is supercilious and loony and the third is weepy. The men come off better. They both shift as the dramatic situation alters. Different possibilities bring out different aspects of the brothers' characters.
As the klutz, Brandon Ryan is withdrawn until the fiancee comes on the scene. Then he starts pulsing with attraction and inhibition, desire and awkwardness. As the mostly functional son, Will Chase starts off cool and composed. The composure becomes tense as mom, sister and brother turn the troubled past into something like an eternal curse. Eventually, Chase makes the attraction of weirdness and violated taboos appear to be irresistible.
And that's what makes "House of Yes" happen. Despite his alleged appetite for sanity, the functional brother brings his fiancee into a den of insanity. Chase's performance gives the production a gloss of plausibility.
What is not so plausible is wanting to watch a gaping, oozing wound as it is jabbed from time to time.
"The House of Yes" runs through Dec. 2. Odd Duck Studio is at 1214 10th Ave. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door; 800-838-3006 or www.brownpapertickets.com
'The Phaedra Project' Now and then one of my daughters would try to explain to me what was going on in a particular episode of "Friends" -- or "Star Trek" or "Seinfeld" or even "The Simpsons." They would tell me why X hated Z, how they used to be lovers, and then Y came along, but then ...
Anyway, it was hopeless. If you can't watch regularly, don't watch at all, Dad.
A similar problem hangs over "The Phaedra Project." Based on Greek legends, this Ghost Light Theatricals production proceeds through an ever-thickening fog of unanswered questions: What's this about Phaedra's son? Why did Phaedra's confidant, Oenone, leave her children? Left them where? Who is this Aricia woman? Why do people fear and shun her? What's with the goddess Aphrodite? What's her gripe? And the god Poseidon -- what's his? What's this pride/shame thing about Hippolytus' mother?
Adding to the confusion is director Beth Raas' decision to tell the first half of the story backwards. The dreadful conclusion is the first scene. Then, when we get to about the middle of the tale, suddenly the chronology reverses. We're at the beginning, inching toward the middle.
One thing is clear: Phaedra has the hots for her stepson, Hippolytus. Continuing with the theme of forbidden desire, Hippolytus has the hots for Aricia. Theramenes seems to have a homosexual hankering for Hippolytus; ditto Oenone for Phaedra.
Not very helpful is the stilted language derived from two historic Phaedra dramas, one by fifth-century B.C. Greek playwright Euripides and the other by 17th-century Frenchman Jean Racine.
Raas' show takes on a bit of life, however, when Phaedra, played by Margaret Bicknell, tries to seduce Hippolytus (Aaron Wagner). It's hard to make out what Bicknell is saying as she walks around Wagner in ever smaller circles. But the desperate way that she ends up fingering his sword is unmistakably suggestive.
Sometimes you don't have to know every character and every episode to figure out what is going on in a multi-installment series. Even so, "The Phaedra" project is a frustrating puzzle rather than an engaging drama.
"Phaedra" plays at the Chamber Theater, fourth floor, Odd Fellows Hall, 915 Pine St., through Nov. 19. Tickets are $12, students and seniors $10; www.brownpapertickets.com
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