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DAILY VARIETY
by
Markland
Taylor
David Wiltse's "Temporary Help" comes full circle, both
opening and closing with an explosion and a dead body. In
between, the main question raised is whether this play is
primarily a thriller or a comedy. With four skilled actors
bringing veracity to their characterizations, the production
has much liveliness. But comedy-thrillers are tough tightropes
to walk, and this one, though a bold try, is a bit too wobbly
for comfort.
Presumably inspired by game-playing comedy-thrillers epitomized
by Ira Levin's "Deathtrap," Wiltse's kinky sex-and-violence
play was workshopped at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater in
1990-91, when Gordon Edelstein was the LWT's associate artistic
director. In 1999, Edelstein directed the play's premiere
at Seattle's A Contemporary Theater, where he is currently
a.d. Edelstein has now brought the play, somewhat revised,
back to Connecticut as the final offering of the Westport
Country Playhouse's disappointing 2001 season. "Temporary
Help" is full of fashionable pop psychology (all three central
characters were abused, physically, mentally and/or sexually,
when they were young, and there are hints of homosexuality)
and barely suppressed ugliness. Its seven scenes take place
in a Nebraska farmhouse over a couple of months. The central
trio are the farmer (Jeffrey DeMunn) and his wife (Karen Allen)
and the latest drifter (Chad Allen) they've employed as temporary
help. Seems the breed is indeed short-lived here: The wife
has had an affair (if that's the word) with each in turn,
after which her husband murders him. The current victim is
a well-built young man with whom the farmer wrestles suggestively
(biting his ear at one point) and whom the wife appears to
see as a possible way out of a marriage littered with corpses.
Not one of these three is a pleasant or sympathetic character
as they play psychological cat and mouse with one another.
The play tips toward comedy as it goes along, but in the end
it's unclear whether the audience is laughing with it or at
it. DeMunn, in particular, and Chad Allen have the necessary
physical toughness and weirdness for their roles, and Karen
Allen projects loneliness, sexiness and maybe craziness effectively.
As the local sheriff, Sam Freed is a beacon of, more-or-less,
sanity.
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