Big Death & Little Death (review)

Washington, DC has become something of a theatrical boomtown. The area surrounding our nation's capital is second only to New York in the number of professional theatres, and those theatre companies are expanding at an extraordinary rate. In the last year alone, African Continuum Theatre Company, GALA Teatro Hispano, Keegan Theatre, and Studio Theater have opened new or significantly remodeled performance spaces. Add the still relatively new theatres of Imagination Stage and Round House Theatre, as well as the planned or under-construction theatres for Arena Stage, Olney Theatre Center, Shakespeare Theatre, and Signature Theater, and this trend of expansion suggests an artistic and a financial confidence that belies the sluggish economy.

The latest theatre company to add a building to the District's landscape is Woolly Mammoth, a twenty-five-year-old company previously without a permanent home. In recent years, Woolly Mammoth had split its performances between the AFI Theatre at the Kennedy Center and the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center; neither felt a proper fit for the brand of controversial world premieres that have become Woolly's hallmark. The new 265-seat, two-tiered courtyard-style space builds upon the renaissance of Washington's 7th Street Corridor, and the unfinished, industrial feel of the design establishes the proper atmosphere for this feisty company, although the physical inflexibility of the space might provide limited staging options for the future.

Under Artistic Director Howard Shalwitz's direction, Woolly Mammoth offered its first production in the new space, the world premiere of Mickey Birnbaum's Big Death & Little Death. While the play claims to "gleefully detonate the generational zeitgeist," there is not nearly enough glee, and the zeitgeist appears skewed beyond recognition. Set in a bleak and anarchic suburbia in the year following the first Gulf War, the story revolves around teen siblings, Gary and Kristi (Mark Sullivan and Kimberly Gilbert, both working a bit too hard to be young and rebellious), searching for meaning and connection in a literally dog-eat-dog world. Their father, a disturbed Gulf vet played by Paul Morella, photographs car accidents for an insurance company, but the photos are also a hobby and an obsession that he shares with his daughter. The adulterous mother, played by an underused Marni Penning, is killed in an auto accident, or her husband kills her; the audience is never entirely sure.

Wishing to take full advantage of the size of the new space, Elena Zlotescu's set is gargantuan. A real automobile suspended above the stage creates a looming, kinetic sense of danger and provides a constant reminder of the tragedy that transforms the lives of this dysfunctional family—who truly are accidents waiting to happen. An enormous picture window suspended from a scaffolding swings down like a drawbridge. The window occasionally is used as a literal window, while at other times it appears to represent something more significant, although this symbolism is not at all clear. Is it supposed to be a portal to the next world? The magnitude of the physical environment detracted from the meaning of the play and the struggles of the characters. The set may well have been a necessary growing pain for the company as it begins to stretch itself technically. As the central visual image, however, the gigantic window overwhelmed the space, and Shalwitz never seemed able to fully integrate it into his storytelling vision.

To be fair, this story may be impossible to tell. The play is a cross between a movie script and an expressionistic exercise, with twenty-three scenes, a narrative that jumps around in time without explanation, and an ending that must communicate the void following the destruction of the universe. The target audience would seem to be the disaffected youth who find solace and meaning in the nihilistic lyrics and...