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THEATER REVIEW; Multiple Characters in a Human Kaleidoscope
By MARGO JEFFERSON
Published: May 14, 2004, Friday
New Yorkers know that bars are like neighborhoods. Hostile or incompatible groups are separated by bar stools instead of streets and apartments. Christopher Shinn's new play, ''Where Do We Live,'' which opened Tuesday night at the Vineyard Theater, begins in a bar like this.
A thin young writer in a print shirt sits at one end talking intensely to the bartender, a hip no-nonsense young woman, about his life. Two blustery businessmen sit at the other end talking about money.
''Is he gay?'' one asks when the writer has left. He has heard a lot of stories about how attractive women hang out with gay men because they're afraid of the real thing. ''I actually have a boyfriend, but thank you for your concern,'' Patricia (Emily Bergl) answers wryly.
What makes disparate lives converge -- or at least cross briefly -- and then go their separate ways? This is Mr. Shinn's subject. In an earlier play, ''Four,'' sex and loneliness drove people across the borders of age, race and gender. Here his cast has doubled: there are nine main characters. They are lovers, neighbors, friends, rivals and business partners.
Stephen, the writer (Luke MacFarlane), is in love with Tyler (Jacob Pitts), a sleek young actor. Temperamentally, it's clear they haven't much in common. Stephen is serious about his liberal politics; Tyler's trust fund frees him to take acting classes and go to auditions. There is bound to be a clash. What sets it off is Stephen's neighbor Timothy (Daryl Edwards), a middle-aged black man with one leg who started borrowing cigarettes and now borrows small sums of money.
To complicate things further, the young black man Timothy lives with deals drugs. Shedrick (Burl Moseley) wants to get out of the business but he hasn't yet managed to. The two apartments are on either side of a red brick set. The audience can't see into one without being aware of the other.
Middle-class bohemia versus working-class survival? It's not that simple. There's a kind of funky bohemianism going on at Timothy's place, too. A pert, empty-headed Englishwoman named Lily (Liz Stauber) has crashed there. (She would have been called a bird in the 1960's.) Lily is in love with Timothy's white drug supplier, Dave (Aaron Stanford). But she doesn't mind watching television and opening Timothy's fly while hoping for Dave's call.
Suspicion flourishes in both households, as does resentment. Shedrick lets Stephen know that his cigarettes and money are not wanted: ''You know, we O.K., we take care of ourselves.'' Tyler warns Stephen that the two black men may be working some scam together. While Tyler and Stephen make love, Shedrick puts on his Eminem CD and pumps up the volume of a blazingly homophobic song. (To hear the words blasting in the dark theater is pretty overwhelming. What is it about the swagger of pure hatred that mesmerizes people?)
There are many scenes, many conversations and many confrontations. Mr. Shinn is examining social, sexual and racial politics. Not just how we define our beliefs, but how we live: our habits and instincts. What happens psychologically when a middle-class liberal like Stephen argues with a working-class conservative, like Tyler's old friend Billy (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)? Or when a white suburban drug dealer like Dave confides details of his privileged childhood to Timothy and insists they are friends?
One night at a bar Stephen is approached by an Asian graduate student. Leo (Aaron Yoo) starts to talk compulsively: ''I don't know why I keep coming here -- I have no access. I'm totally ignored because I'm not blond and built and -- it's like, so clear here, like -- Who cares what we do in this world -- it's all how you look.''
Leo utters some sharp truths. But he feels less like a character than a catalyst put onstage to make sure certain things are said and done. This is due in part to Mr. Yoo's hyper performance, but also to Mr. Shinn's writing. The same is true for Lily, the English tweety bird. However shallow she is, a writer must make her worth our attention. As is, she's only worth our condescension.
''Where Do We Live'' unfolds over a month in New York in 2001. It opens in early August. So coke and Ecstasy flow, people couple, uncouple and quarrel, hearts are broken, and no one realizes that Sept. 11 is coming nearer and nearer. It makes us recall our own lives in all their intensity and triviality.
What I like best about ''Where Do We Live'' which runs through May 30, is its ambition. Mr. Shinn wants to do more than just repeat his successes. He wants to work with ideas as well as characters. He has directed his play this time around, and while it moves too slowly for my taste, the actors work very well together.
Mr. Shinn is certainly a skilled craftsman. Yet the craft shows so much that it dulls the emotions. Some devices, like the overlapping dialogue, grow too familiar. We can predict too many of the plot twists, even though they are well executed. And for all of the detail a few important stories were too sketchy: I wanted to know more, for instance, about the rage and contempt Shedrick shows for Timothy.
None of which means this play is not worth seeing. It is. Young writers are supposed to grow and that's what Mr. Shinn is doing.
WHERE DO WE LIVE
Written and directed by Christopher Shinn; sets by Rachel Hauck; costumes by Mattie Ullrich; lighting by David Weiner; sound by Jill BC DuBoff; original music by Storm P; production manager, Kai Brothers and Bridget Markov; production stage manager, Erika Timperman; director of production, Reed Ridgley; general manager, Rebecca Habel. Presented by the Vineyard Theater, Douglas Aibel, artistic director; Bardo S. Ramírez, managing director; Jennifer Garvey-Blackwell, executive director, external affairs. At the Vineyard Theater, 108 East 15th Street.
WITH: Luke MacFarlane (Stephen), Emily Bergl (Patricia), Aaron Stanford (Young Businessman 1/Young White Man/Young White Guy/Dave), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Young Businessman 2/Billy/Young Art Student), Burl Moseley (Shedrick), Liz Stauber (Lily), Daryl Edwards (Timothy), Aaron Yoo (Leo/Cellist) and Jacob Pitts (Tyler).
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