BWW Reviews: Glowing VENUS IN FUR Unfolds at Gulfshore Playhouse

The fur flew.

Oh, come on. That pun wrote itself. The play is called "Venus in Fur." Caucasian sable from Kazakhstan.

And subtext. Acres of subtext - even if we never get acres of skin. This isn't porn, after all.

Unless you use your imagination. "...opening the fur to reveal her glories?"

"Venus in Fur" opens with playwright Thomas (Nick Duckart) barking into a cell phone. He needs a woman. Well, an actress. Cue Vanda (Kelley Curran). Hours late for her audition (if she ever had one), clad in leather and stilettos, cussing like a sailor and concealing surprises galore under those fishnets and black bra. Oh. The dog collar? It was left over from her days as a prostitute.

Director Kristen Coury scoured New York for the right actress to carry off the preening blend of confidence, open mockery and featherweight facade of innocence. Kelley Curran, cast from a videotape audition, electrifies from the moment Vanda bursts through the door, a messy tumble of clothes, bags, shoes and leather underwear.

Curran inhabits Vanda with the complete uninhibited abandon required to carry such a bold, complex character forward. Churlish one moment, meowing and purring the next, hard as nails three heartbeats later and then curling around the central column like avaricious kudzu swallowing the South.

How many actresses do you know who can knock out a punchline - "she looked pretty wet the last time I saw her" (yes, it means *exactly* that; no, the crowd didn't get it *at all*) - and follow that with a full standing to butt-on-the-floor squat in the blink of an eye? While wearing stiletto heels?

Duckart returns from"A View from the Bridge." His so very un-self-aware Thomas proves the brittle anvil for the hammer stroke of Vanda's lash of love. Look for the petty anger (played as sexist snobbery and clueless confusion) to manifest as white-hot erotic passion.

The fun part of "Venus" lies in watching Thomas Lose his mind and his identity at the hands of this woman Vanda. But watch also how Coury navigates the various power struggles in the text. Clever staging (catch the delicious psychologist couch scene) allows life to imitate art. At every moment, Thomas seems to be in control. No man ever is.

"Venus" goes down (pun intended) as one of this season's first "must-watch" plays. Catch Kelley Curran and Nick Duckart in their dueling dance of the damned.

Chris Silk is the arts writer and theater critic for the Naples Daily News. To read the longer version of this review, go to: http://www.gonaples.com/news/2013/oct/05/review-gulfshore-playhouse-venus-in-fur-tickets/

Photo Credit: Pedro Zepeda / Gulfshore Playhouse

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