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NY THEATER.COM
TEMPORARY HELP /Womens Project Theater
Here's the set-up: Karl Streber (Robert Cuccioli),
borderline psychopath, runs a farm in Nebraska with his co-dependent
spouse, Faye (Margaret Colin). When we meet
him, Karl is stowing a freshly-killed body under the sink
and Faye is keeping Sheriff Ron Stucker (William Prael)
busy in the living room until he's finished. Ron wants to
ask Karl about a man who used to work at the Streber farm
who has since disappeared—some not too subtle foreshadowing.
In the next scene, Karl shows up at the house with the strapping
(and improbably named) young man Vincent Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(Chad Allen), who at first appears to be a tailor-made
next victim for whatever shenanigans the Strebers are involved
with, but quite soon proves his mettle as match-and-then-some
for this weird couple. Playwright David Wiltse provides an
intricate plot in which everybody has reason to be worried
about what everybody else is doing; it's rife with psycho-sexual
(sometimes homoerotic) game-playing and filled with herrings—some
of them red, some not—that include abusive parents, suspicious
deaths, guns, explosives, insurance policies, and other incendiary
things. It feels written (as opposed to organic) almost all
the time, and the ending doesn't feel entirely earned. That
said, Temporary Help is spectacularly watchable, and not in
a traffic-accident way: this is a well-crafted thriller that
grips us and keeps us on the edge of our seats. If the big
moments elicit titters rather than gasps, well, that's disappointing;
but this is certainly a plausible entertainment, and that
for all of the plot's implausibilities. The cast is fine,
especially Cuccioli, who is obviously having a ball playing
this lunatic—without ever going over the top, he creates a
genuine menace (the little bit of butt cleavage that he flashes
us in his opening scene, bending over in jeans that are too
low and too tight, telegraph much about the performance).
Colin similarly has a field day as the wife who may or may
not be in this thing up to her eyeballs, though her playing
feels a bit mannered in the second act. Allen, buff
and youthful and manic, makes Vincent the play's revving engine.
Prael acquits himself nicely in the least showy role as the
Sheriff.
(reviewed on November 15, 2002)
Temporary Help
By David Wiltse
Directed by Leslie L. Smith
Women's Project Theater
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Robert Cuccioli & Chad Allen in Temporary Help
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