Critiquing the world premiere of a play - or any piece of art for that matter - is a daunting task. It is so easy to dissect and ridicule every minute aspect of the script, whether it is character development, plot arcs or simply the language.
How troubling it must be, then, for the artist in question to devise his or her work in the first place. Certainly the burden that artists bear to create the best of their best every time they pick up a pen, stroke a paintbrush or sing an aria, can be enough to drive them to endless internal dialogue of doubt and despair.
Such struggles of an artist are exquisitely explored in Alleyway Theatre's current production of Colin Mitchell's "Bitten By A Fly," now onstage through Oct. 12. The mostly dramatic text was a finalist in the theater's 2002 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition.
Alleyway's Director of Public Relations Joyce Stilson directs and designs the production, which opens the downtown theater's season of world- and area-premiere plays.
Where Mitchell's text works correctly - and it often does - is in his explorative use of the main character's internal dialogue. Lola (Kate Olena) is a highly successful New York City painter, who, as it turns out in the very humorous first act, is a menacing mentor to student Sullivan (Rich Kraemer). Their conversation casually tiptoes through the artistic dilemmas of finding one's inspiration, whilst the sexually driven teacher tries to unzip her way into her prot?(c)g?(c)'s pants.
She claims that it's all for art.
A very smart and consistently sharp performance by Kraemer, an undergraduate student at Canisius College, feeds the sparks between the pair, as they share more than just creative juices. His Daniel Stern meets Woody Allen charm is rich with subtle hysteria and overt paranoia.
The road to artistic freedom, says Lola, comes from the sacrificing of one's true inner-self. Kraemer not only adequately displays a layered characterization of Sullivan, but also a distinguishable knack for being honest with his words. He works very well in this role, and it's hard to imagine anyone else taking it on with such sincerity.
The first act casually strolls through Lola's comedic interactions with Sullivan, her agent Tory (Kathryn Chesley) and a seemingly normal prospective buyer, Donny (Larry G. Smith).
While the outdoor park setting is abstractly staged with large, draped sheets of green and olive hues, the black curtain upstage is a distraction and too easily reminds the audience that they aren't really in a park, they're in a theater.
But the impedance of an abstract element in the production is quickly halted when Lola successfully swats the buzzing fly that's been after her for the whole first act. When Lola finally catches the insect, it then magically appears in human form (Michael Starzynski).
Abstract? Yes. Effective? Not until the last stretch of the second act does the constancy of the Fly's onstage interaction really become important to Lola's dilemma.
After being bitten by the fly at the end of the first act, it becomes known that Lola has contracted a disease from the insect, which renders her blind. For an average human being, this is a troublesome and annoying disturbance to life. For Lola, it signals the end of her career.
And just as Jiminy Cricket hopped on Pinocchio's bandwagon to save the troubled lad, so does the Fly inhibit Lola's conscience and physical space, casting encouraging but sly remarks on her every decision and movement.
Starzynski is quite humorous as the insect, and uses his every buzz and hiss to his delightful advantage, stretching and turning each sound with creative effect. His involvement really doesn't kick in with the dramatic pathos that it would appear he is present for until the end of the play.
The second act, which takes place many months after the first, is a far more dramatic stretch of emotion than the comedic first act. When Sullivan reappears to visit his former mentor, Lola is uncooperative in rekindling her need to paint. Alcohol and the Fly have filled her days with doubt and loneliness.
A sweet and somewhat touching last few moments adequately complete the many circles Mitchell's wonderfully complex characters inhabit. For Lola, the end of the play signifies the beginning of her next life. As a blind painter, she must learn to create shapes and shadows without the luxury of vibrant color.
Mitchell's tale of life and art has moments of clich?(c) and melodrama, but they quickly dissipate as the next appropriate plot points kicks in. With Lola, the complexities of her art are never fully explained; there's only so much that can be explored in two hours. But with Mitchell, his two hours of glory are full of not only shadows and shape, but also deep, rich color.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
