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Reviewed by:
  • Carrie
  • Jordan Schildcrout
Carrie. By Erik Jackson , adapted from the novel by Stephen King . Directed by Josh Rosenzweig . Theatre Couture, Performance Space 122, New York City. 1312 2006.

Stephen King's first novel, Carrie(1974), tells the story of a teenage misfit with telekinetic powers who avenges herself on cruel classmates by turning prom night into a deadly inferno. Sissy Spacek won acclaim playing the title role in Brian De Palma's popular 1976 film adaptation, while theatre aficionados remember the disastrous 1988 stage musical version as one of the most notorious flops in Broadway history. The persistent fascination with Carrie, in all her various incarnations, is perhaps rooted in America's interest in the tension between individuality and conformity, between queerness and normalcy. Therefore Theatre Couture's queer reinterpretation of Carrie, with drag performer Sherry Vine (a.k.a. Keith Levy) playing the title role, uses camp comedy not simply to send-up Carrie, but rather to highlight the themes of gender and sexual difference inherent in the original story. The result is a playful revenge fantasy for anyone who ever felt awkward, lonely, or queer in high school.

Set in 1979, the play follows the Cinderella story of Carrie White, a painfully shy girl who is taunted and bullied by all of her classmates, never more so than when she has her first period in the gym shower. She finds little comfort at home from her Bible-thumping mother, who tells her that menstruation is the result of sinful desires and then locks her in a closet to force her to pray to Jesus for forgiveness. But Carrie begins to notice that, at times of great stress or anger, she can move things with her mind: teacups break and lightbulbs burst.

One classmate with a conscience, Sue Snell, decides to help Carrie, so she persuades her own boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. At first Carrie assumes that the invitation is a prank intended to humiliate her, but once convinced of Tommy's sincerity, she allows herself to believe that she has found her Prince Charming. Defying her mother, she goes to the prom and gets elected queen, only to have her moment of triumph ruined when a cabal of students dumps a bucket of pig's blood on her. Stunned and enraged, her mental powers unleash hell, trapping everyone in the school and burning them alive in a horrific blaze. She returns home and crucifies her mother with kitchen knives before burying herself under an imploding house.

The actors present their archetypal characters in quotation marks, and the best performers (such as Danielle Skraastad as the butch gym teacher and Matthew Wilkas as the dopey though good-natured jock) find variety within the broad characterizations. As written by Erik Jackson and directed by Josh Rosenzweig, the play often imitates the cinematic techniques of De Palma's film, with puppet master Basil Twist (best known for his Symphonie Fantastique) crafting special effects that translate the tropes of the horror movie into a theatrical medium. Carrie's telekinesis moves objects with the aid of hooks and wires, flames are represented by fan-blown orange and red fabric, and a box window upstage shows us cars flipping and houses collapsing in miniature. Such low-budget effects have the ability to charm with their simple though well-crafted artistry but also to inspire laughter as deliberately facile imitations of recognizable movie moments. Perhaps the most striking effect is the realistically designed pig puppet (created by Emily DeCola), whose gruesome slaughter functions as the finale of act 1, foreshadowing the blood bath to come in the second act. [End Page 519]

Following the tradition of Charles Ludlam's Camille, Theatre Couture's Carrietakes a female character—a social outsider and victim who finds a reservoir of strength but is ultimately doomed—and reinterprets her as a drag diva, adding material that underlines the character's queerness. When being bullied into the prayer closet by her mother, Sherry Vine's Carrie whines, "But Momma, I don't wanna go in the closet!" and then gives the audience a knowing look. Later, Carrie's mother begs her not...

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