 |
| Support
Chad's charities by buying classy tee's, cups, bags, etc.
|
| Catch
up some of the news, join a discussion or just air
your feelings on Chad Allen with other fans. |
|
|
BROADWAY.COM
by
Adam Feldman
TEMPORARY HELP /Womens Project Theater
Temporary Help literally starts off with a bang: the sound
of a gunshot. When the lights go up, there is a corpse on
the kitchen floor, wrapped in a bloody white sheet. The killers
are Karl and Faye, a farm couple in rural Nebraska, and the
victim is the latest in a line of hired hands to be knocked
off in similar fashion. But there is no time for Karl and
Faye to discuss their latest kill; the sheriff is knocking
on the door, and they have to hide the body. As Faye flirts
with the lawman in the living room, Karl stuffs the stiff
beneath the sink. The sheriff leaves, after washing his hands,
so the killers, for now, are safe. But they need to find new
help.
If you haven't guessed by now, Temporary Help is a thriller,
and a highly entertaining one at that. As such, it is a rarity.
The suspense genre has been ceded nearly completely to the
movies in recent years, because film directors have devices
to set crowds into automatic tension: ominous underscoring,
piped-in heartbeats and heavy breathing, cameras hand-held
from a stalker's point of view. In the theater, a thriller
has no such tricks at its disposal. Its twists and turns must
all be in the writing, and its director must earn every gasp
from the audience.
David Wiltse's script is a clever knot of intrigue and reversals--Deathtrap
in the cornfields. Karl (Robert Cuccioli) and Faye (Margaret
Colin), married for decades, are "wrapped around each other
like two weeds choking each other to death." He is a wily
sociopath with a violent temper; she has a masochistic streak
and bad habits like drinking alone and sleeping around. Together
they have been running a scam involving bad checks, cattle,
and disappearing employees.
But their uneasy equilibrium is thrown off by their latest
hired hand Vincent (Chad Allen), a mercenary
drifter who may or may not be a serial killer. Vincent, 25
and none too bright, has a tightly muscled body and blonde
hair that is dirty in more ways than one. Faye thinks he is
"sensitive" and begs Karl to let him live, but she has other
motives than kindness in mind. Karl, not easily duped, has
his eye on Vincent as well.
Effective thrillers are often described as taut, but Leslie
L. Smith's direction of Temporary Help seduces the audience
with its looseness. Wiltse's dialogue has the punch one expects
from a thriller, with one or two sucker punches thrown in,
but Smith never lets it go arch. His staging at the Women's
Project Theater has a lived-in feel, starting with Troy Hourie's
believably shabby set: a hodgepodge of browns and beiges with
checkered paper on the walls and a patch of duct tape on Karl's
favorite leather chair. The acting, on the whole, is similarly
relaxed. Allen is artlessly unstable as Vincent, while Cuccioli,
in what might be called the Billy Bob Thornton role, gives
Karl a surface affability that make his other side all the
more threatening. Colin, her tall frame slackened into a defeated
slump, is especially compelling as the desperate Faye, seething
with thwarted passions and loneliness. Together, the director
and cast help ground Temporary Help's suspense in reality,
and the result is good, dark fun. When I wasn't leaning back
in pleasure, I was on the edge of my seat.
Temporary Help
By David Wiltse
Directed by Leslie L. Smith
Women's Project Theater
|
Robert Cuccioli & Margaret Colin in Temporary Help
|
|
