STAGE REVIEW : Tiny Stage of Big Kitchen Becomes a Living ‘Hell’

For the 60 minutes of David Mamet’s “Bobby Gould in Hell,” director John Highkin and a talented four-person cast transform a narrow room of the Big Kitchen restaurant, which seats about 20, into a living hell.

It’s not such an unpleasant hell--at first. The devil, actor Eric Grischkat in horns and jeans, is just a bored, overworked and wanting-to-get-on-with-it executive, who wants the case resolved so he can go fishing. His assistant, played to prissy perfection by Dana Case, is a fearful and eager-to-please executive secretary.

But the problem with hell--which becomes increasingly evident during the hour--is that it offers no escape. And there are plenty ominous, unnerving hints--made by the devil and his assistant--of the unspeakable horrors to come.

When Bobby Gould (Kevin O’Neill) tries to escape (unsuccessfully) from the front entrance, the back door and the corridor, to the other side of the restaurant, only to get flung back by unknown forces, sometimes invisible and sometimes not, accompanied by eerie, whooshing noises (William Bradbury did the sound), the feeling in the room gets a bit unsettling.

Of course, it’s only a play, running at the Big Kitchen through May 24, audience members can remind themselves.

But for devotees of Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone,” the sliver of doubt always exists. What if, like Bobby, whom they see walking into the restaurant only to find himself in hell, they have inadvertently done the same? What if, after the scrumptious pies and coffee or tea that precede the show, everyone is unable to retreat to comfortable homes?

What if, after Bobby is done accounting for himself, each of the audience members has to be questioned by the devil and have those accounts be measured against a book in which everything one says and does in one’s lifetime has been recorded?

Part of what makes this show work is that the sins of Gould, as presented here, are not so dark. He denies at first that he’s “a bad man,” insisting that he is, at worst, “a B-minus sort of man.” Isn’t everyone guilty of little transgressions like looking out for No. 1?

But in the spirit of Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” sometimes just being a middle-of-the-road person, taking care of one’s business and putting one’s needs first, can be a sin of the conscience. It’s not a fresh insight, but one well worth repeating in this fresh form.

Mamet’s play does have its flaws. And particularly irritating is Mamet’s low-level misogyny--evident in his portrait of the very irritating, condescending woman, Glenna, whom Bobby has wronged. Despite a good performance by Elizabeth Soukup in the role, it is unclear what Mamet was trying to do here, except possibly to say that it is impossible for men and women to get along--a theme Mamet frequently explores.

But what saves this show is the simple accessibility of the production, the quirky but apropos visuals by Cindy Zimmerman, the quality of the performances and Highkin’s skill at including the audience. This is not the sort of show one can sit back and judge from a distance. One feels swept up in the action--a part of it. The actors are too close and the space is too close for one not to acknowledge the performers and one’s fellow patrons.

And that continues to be one of the special joys of the Project Theatre, which started its productions at the Big Kitchen in 1989.

Long may they continue to serve their inimitable blend of comfortable desserts and wonderfully uncomfortable theater.

“BOBBY GOULD IN HELL”

By David Mamet. Director is John Highkin. Visuals by Cindy Zimmerman. Sound by William Bradbury. With Dana Case, Kevin O’Neill, Eric Grischkat and Elizabeth Soukup. Performances are 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays through May 24. Tickets are $15, including dessert and coffee. At The Big Kitchen Cafe, 3003 Grape St. Call 235-9756.