Rash BehaviorBruce Norris’s class satire The Pain and the Itch takes the mechanism of a good farce, one by someone like Alan Ayckbourn, tweaks it about along the clever farce lines like playing some scenes out of their time sequence, sets up the characters with petards to foist themselves on, lets it all play out until it the situations are totally confusing and then neatly ties it all up in the last ten minutes. Kelly (Sarah Sutherland) and Clay (Daniel Frederiksen) seem the perfect couple. Kelly is a successful businesswoman; Clay a somewhat resentful house husband sacrificing his own career (and cat) to care for their baby and preschool daughter Kayla (Oregen Guilloux alternating with Cooke and Fantine Banulski). What isn't explained at first is the presence of an immigrant African taxi driver Mr. Hadid (Terry Yeboah), why he is crying in the opening scene or what it is that Kelly and Cash are trying to explain to him. Their conversations ramble, Hadid asking the price Clay’s shoes, furniture or their property tax. At the same Kelly and Clay’s Thanksgiving gathering is played out. Visiting are Clay’s plastic surgeon brother Cash (Brett Cousins) and mother Carol (Andrea Swift) along with Cash’s East European girl friend Kalina (Erin Dewar). These two separate time frames are played together and the first act is mainly taken up with a litany of inter-family hatreds, resentments and anxiety over the discovery of a gnawed avocado. The new discovery that Kalya has a genital rash ups the anxiety that it might be caused by whatever rodent is gnawing at the avocado.
The real gnawing is the extended family gnawing at each other’s nerves exposing their prejudices. Clay resents his more successful wife and harbours a life long grudge against his brother Cash. Kelly clearly loathes everything about Cash, Carol claims to favour neither son but constantly and unconsciously reinforces Clay’s claim he was the second favourite. Carol is the addled mother from Hell and nobody, even Cash at times, likes the bigoted and self absorbed Kalina. Norris’s trump is that this American family are series of clichés, long reinforced by television and film. They merge left wing, radical, and PC chick with every sort of conservative prejudice imaginable. Presumably this is why everyone but the child and the taxi driver wear only their underwear, exposed for us, the audience to see them for what they are. Unlike the good humoured farces of Mr Ayckbourn and co., The Pain and the Itch is a cruel spectacle. Norris creates a log-jam of individual incidents that make this family a totally unlovable one. Even the final resolution is made at the expense of their amorality. The pain turns out an unspeakable pain caused by one of the many squabbles we witness and the chain of actions it sets off. The itch is finally explained like Ibsen’s Ghosts or Arthur Schnitzler’s Der Rondel as a sexual ‘pass the parcel’. For a final indignity Norris even includes a dash of 'cruel woman on nerdy guy' action Neil LaBute style in his finale.
I have to hand it to Red Stitch for finding a way of navigating through this bitch epic. The long acts, filled with abuse and ambiguity, were so well balanced. Director Görkem Acaroglu balances the dysfunction at all times, making it seem acceptable to characters in the play but abhorrent to us the audience. The cast, as usual, are well chosen and present the permamnant ensemble members with opportunities to display familiar characteristics. Guest artist Yeboah, seeming to move and speak a little slower while the others buzz around, makes the enigmatic outsider a constant focus - is he freind or foe, what is he hiding? (and what else can the others possibly still have to hide for that matter). The small playing space puts everything up to close scrutiny (as if acting in your underwear isn't difficult enough) so the well controlled mood was very welcome. When tempers flared, they did so explosively but when the room falls silent dirty looks carry just as well. The Pain and the Itch pushes a lot of moral buttons in what it exposes as well as how it is played. It also pushes a lot of boundaries in is the situations and characters. The child actors playing Kala are privy to some fairly raunchy sights and sounds and the play ends with the only member of the family with any decency squashed and betrayed while the appalled Hadid flees the two-faced assembly. Anna Cordingley's set is an angry red adorned with illustrations of various skin infections from the pages of medical book. In a way the whole thing gets under your skin. Norris may have intended it but the laughs often come with a very unpleasant after taste.
I have to hand it to Red Stitch for finding a way of navigating through this bitch epic. The long acts, filled with abuse and ambiguity, were so well balanced. Director Görkem Acaroglu balances the dysfunction at all times, making it seem acceptable to characters in the play but abhorrent to us the audience. The cast, as usual, are well chosen and present the permamnant ensemble members with opportunities to display familiar characteristics. Guest artist Yeboah, seeming to move and speak a little slower while the others buzz around, makes the enigmatic outsider a constant focus - is he freind or foe, what is he hiding? (and what else can the others possibly still have to hide for that matter). The small playing space puts everything up to close scrutiny (as if acting in your underwear isn't difficult enough) so the well controlled mood was very welcome. When tempers flared, they did so explosively but when the room falls silent dirty looks carry just as well. The Pain and the Itch pushes a lot of moral buttons in what it exposes as well as how it is played. It also pushes a lot of boundaries in is the situations and characters. The child actors playing Kala are privy to some fairly raunchy sights and sounds and the play ends with the only member of the family with any decency squashed and betrayed while the appalled Hadid flees the two-faced assembly. Anna Cordingley's set is an angry red adorned with illustrations of various skin infections from the pages of medical book. In a way the whole thing gets under your skin. Norris may have intended it but the laughs often come with a very unpleasant after taste.
The Pain and the Itch (2005) by Bruce Norris
Kelly - Sarah Sutherland
Clay, her husband - Daniel Frederiksen
Cash, his brother - Brett Cousins
Carol, Clay and Cash's mother - Andrea Swifte
Mr Hadid - Terry Yeboah
Kalina, Cash's girlfriend - Erin Dewar
Kalya, Kelly and Clay's daughter - Oregen Guilloux-Cooke alternating with Fantine Banulski
Director - Görkem Acaroglu
Designer - Anna Cordingley
30 April - 31 May
135 minutes (1 interval)
pictured: Daniel Frederiksen (foreground) [picture: Jodie Hutchinson]
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