We went to see what Sam Shepard was up to. His play was “Geography of a Horse Dreamer.” But neither the title nor the actor-playwright who conjured it up, did much for the twenty something lady seated next to us. She went, she said, to show support for her friend who was one of the cast. People do things for their own reasons. It didn’t matter.
Not then.
“Horse Dreamer” was the most recent offering in the Arts and Lecture Series put on by Shoreline Community College. The Series presents contemporary artists, performing and compositional, with the aim in mind of informing as well as entertaining. Also, it seeks to draw for its audiences as much from the public at large as the student body. “Dreamer” would have fit the bill all the way around if more of the community had turned out last Friday night. Some of us showed up. But by and large, it was students who overflowed rows of chairs for seventy or so and took up what seating space there was on the floor in front of the stage in the Campus Theater Lobby. That was a shame. The production deserved public support. Shepard was on his game. The cast stirred up excitement.
“Geography of a Horse Dreamer” refers to the mentality of Cody, a cowboy who can pick winning horses on racetracks across the country. Beyond that, Cody is a metaphor for the right brained among us who can do things out of the ordinary, things no one can explain. True to life, unfortunately, the right brained types also appear harebrained; to a tee, Cody fits the profile.
Cody barks like a dog, rants like a madman and pops pills around the clock except when he is sedated, which is the way his keepers like to keep him when he isn’t picking winners.
To spice things up even further, Cody’s keepers are Santee and Beaujo, two gangsters who live in mortal fear of Fingers, an effeminate lunatic who pushes their buttons when he rattles their cages, which is every five minutes or so it seems. Understand, though, it isn’t so much Fingers that Jasper and Beaujo freeze at the thought of. It’s his second in command, The Doctor, a cold-blooded femme fatale who tortures and kills for pleasure.
Intuition, creativity, the infinite mystery of the human mind or dreaming as it is laid out in Shepard’s play, is certainly a subject that fires up the popular imagination these days. But there isn’t an awful lot here that says much about the whys and wherefores. The wonder of the subject is pretty much it.
Nor are the characters particularly original. However, they are colorful; and the cast under the direction of Tony Doupe, got a lot of mileage out of their audience with them. Time after time, outbreaks of laughter, oftentimes sustained, brought out actor after actor, encouraged them to ham it up; and that the cast did do, wholeheartedly.
George Jonson as Cody was a near look alike for Brad Pitt doing outrageous comedy. Alex Lavrentyev as Santee, the mobster goon, could easily provide muscle for The Godfather; and Jason Adkins as Beaujo was a thinner James Gandolfini but every bit as sympathetic as Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. And Catherine Hendrix as The Doctor was deadly as a cobra and as chilling as Hannibal The Cannibal.
The show stopper, however, was Kevin Dailey. His Fingers was John Malkovich gone squeamish. Lisping, mincing, head shaved with sideburns that looked penciled in with an eye-brow stick, Dailey shuddered at the thought of violence, cozied up to the thugs who dared not spurn him lest he sic The Doctor on them. Everyone roared.
Strobe lights muted the violence. Language was slang but not off color. The production was fun. The real achievement, however, was the effect the students had on their colleagues on stage. They supported them in every way. The twenty something lady seated next to us was beside herself with encouragement for Dailey every time he i/mprovised. It was a pleasure to be a part of, well worth the effort involved. “Geography” finished its run last weekend. But SCC’s next production this fall will be Tony Kushner’s “The Illusion.” Why not give it a try? For tickets, call: 206-546-4606.
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