Theater Review: Staged elevator drama has its ups and downs
When we’re shaken out of our everyday selves, when the self-protective walls we hide behind crumble in times of extreme stress, who do we become?
That’s the social and psychological territory that prolific Irish author and playwright Dermot Davis explores, not altogether successfully, in the premiere of his seriocomic drama, “Caged,” directed by Tim Byron Owen at Theatre Banshee in Burbank, and presented by Mean Machine Productions and Georganne Aldrich Heller in association with the Banshee.
The premise is simple: A man and a woman, strangers to each other, are trapped in a stalled high-rise elevator at night. Josh (Johnny O’Callaghan), a mild, somewhat disheveled Irishman, had come to the building for a session with his therapist, who turned out to be a no-show; Ruth (Elizabeth Lande), a high-powered, tightly wound New York lawyer, is heading home after working late.
Their cellphones are unresponsive, the elevator has no phone and the emergency button isn’t functioning. (The actors mime the button pushing. Dan Conroy’s minimal set is a square platform reached by a catwalk; the dimensions of the elevator are delineated by the platform and a matching frame suspended from above.)
Josh, not much concerned by the situation, assumes it’ll be a long wait and makes himself comfortable on the floor. Ruth paces, irritated, put-upon, wanting to assign blame, if not to the building owners, then to Josh. He jokingly responds by asking if she had made any enemies due to her law practice. Ruth is not amused.
Josh continues to be the laid-back peacemaker as time passes, taking little offense at Ruth’s obvious disdain and her claims of superiority, but getting under her skin with analytic perspectives and expressions of religious faith. A bottle of Irish whiskey, some rather unhinged Irish dancing, and bouts of frank, tension-alleviating sex lead to a new dynamic between the two.
Yet despite resonant moments, there is no strong sense that the pair’s veneer of accepted social behavior truly devolves over the course of the play to the point that Ruth’s cry of “we’re animals in a cage” is credible.
The depth of feeling and authenticity that O’Callaghan brought to his one-man touring show, “Who’s Your Daddy,” which ran at the Banshee in 2012, is missing in a diffused performance here, weakening the impact of Josh’s eventual personal revelations and a physical act of desperation.
For her part — even when Ruth’s scraped-back hair comes down, and her buttoned-down facade becomes unbuttoned, figuratively and literally — Lande at times seems to overcompensate for O’Callaghan’s muted Josh with a forced volatility that makes less believable her character’s brief, vulnerable yielding to him.
Both of these capable actors, however, are at the mercy of Davis’ not-quite-ready-for-prime-time script. Ultimately, Davis’ attempt to address larger issues of identity, spirituality, guilt and redemption suffers from speechifying and revelation overkill, sparked by Josh’s profession (not intended to be immediately known) and with the facile reasons for Ruth’s brittleness and self-denying shell. The play’s final twist, too, is a patience-trying twist too many.
What: “Caged”
Where: Theatre Banshee, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank.
When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. Ends Nov. 22.
Tickets: $20.
More info: (800) 838-3006, caged.brownpapertickets.com
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LYNNE HEFFLEY writes about theater and culture for Marquee.