A tape recording explodes relationships between three friends in high school after not seeing each other for ten years.
The play is Stephen Belber’s “Tape,” a high-voltage, assault-and-battery on the sensibilities of three young adults with repressed issues hardwired in — and just waiting for the right buttons to be pushed. It’s psychological in orientation, intense and absolutely attention-riveting.
It’s also a tribute to Shoreline Community College drama instructor Tony Doupe, who directed it, and SCC alumni Ryan Brummitt and Todd Szeckely, who star in it. SCC doesn’t partner with New Space, but the positive influence of the college’s drama department on this production certainly does show to advantage.
As to particulars, Brummitt plays Jon, a graduate from USC’s renowned school of filmmaking on the eve before his first film’s screening in Lansing, Mich. Jon is ambitious, clean cut, psyched for his debut and entirely okay with hooking up with his pal from high school. They haven’t been in touch for a decade; why not?
However, his pal, Vince, as played by Szeclely, is a doper, small-time pusher and part-time fireman. Troubled, isolated, turbulent, rough around the edges and aggressive to the point of turning violent, anything might set him off.
Also, Vince has an agenda. There is something he wants to know and is determined to find out.
Given that, “Tape” is a one act, the first two thirds of which amount to cat and mouse, Vince being the cat and Jon the mouse. Layer by layer and inch by inch, the good old days are circled around, probed and peeled back until an old wound of Vince’s is exposed. At which point, Jon fesses up to the part he played but without knowing Vince is taping the confession.
The arguing heats up, Vince shows Jon the tape and they fight for it without either one of them knowing what actually happened back in high school, at least not until Amy (Kristen Manning) shows up.
Amy is a self-composed, smartly dressed, somewhat aloof Assistant D.A. in Lansing and ex-girlfriend of Vince and one-night stand of Jon’s when all three were in high school together. Also, Amy is the one person who can clear things up, set everybody straight and tell Vince, the bulldog that won’t let go, what he wants to know.
Everything takes place in a bare, drab motel room. The dialogue seethes with tension, threatens to detonate at the turn of a word and is super-charged with subtext.
Acting is what “Tape” is about, and acting is what these three actors do and do with meticulously close attention to detail. Not a nuance goes unexpressed.
Watching as things go along, however, becomes an act of self-inflicted pain but marvelously so. Fine play, fine performances, fine directing, fine everything.
I liked “Tape.” I look forward to “The Firebugs” by Max Frisch and “Brilliant Traces” by Cindy Lou Johnson, both upcoming at New Space.
Reactions? E-mail Dale Burrows at grayghost7@comcast.net.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
