'Hey You, Light Man!' - Illuminate Me!

Hey You, Light Man! is a fascinating slice of play. Oliver Hailey, the playwright, won the Drama Desk Award for its off-Broadway production in 1963, but now most people don't know the play at all*. The Firebrand Theatre Company and Director Jaime Robert Carrillo should be commended for bringing this fascinating and funny work back to life. I only wish they'd done a better job.

The play centers around Ashley Knight (Christopher Lee), an actor who has decided to live on the opulent set of his current sex farce, rather than go home to his overbearing family. Once he's locked in for the night and comfortably ensconced with his brandy, easy chair, and "Moon River", a woman named Lula Roca (Sari Caine) interrupts his idyll to say that she fell asleep during the show and somehow got locked in the theater. Lula's abusive stagehand husband was recently killed by a falling sandbag, Lula has no place to go, so her friend Mabel brought her to the theatre to cheer her up, then abandoned her to chase autographs. The Actor brings the Audience member up onto the stage, and a seriously unconventional love story begins.

The best thing about this play is the chemistry between the two leading actors. Mr. Lee, with his matinée idol good looks (Imagine Christian Bale with a dash of Stamos), is the perfect narcissist, in love with himself and the imaginary façades of the stage. Sari Caine is a revelation as the frumpy Lula Roca, bringing a genuine exuberance and innocence to every moment; when she finally becomes emboldened by love, she casts off her dowdiness and shines. The two work together grandly, and a scene where they create a jungle using their imaginations is a highlight.

Everyone else in the play is obviously trying very hard, in most cases too hard, as several choices were made that undermine the reality of the characters. As emissaries from the outside world, it seems to me they should be more "real" than the actor and the sets they are invading, but all of them were extremely stylized. It would be like doing Pippin in street clothes; it feels anti-intuitive. I couldn't tell if it was a choice of the script (because it could lead that way) or of the director/designer, but I felt it sapped the stakes and power of the love story to make the obstacles such paper tigers.

First there's Lula Roca's "friend" Mabel (Sonya Tsuchigane), who is written to be annoying and funny, but only comes off as annoying. Her costume- gold lamé stretch pants, a magenta blouse with a leopard print sash, lots of gold jewelry and hideous blue eyeshadow, turns her into nothing more than a clown, and we all know that clowns aren't funny.

Tube, Knight's son, is apparently supposed to be a musclebound hunk of a boy (according to the lines), but muscles were not particularly in evidence on Gary Ferrar's lanky frame, despite his wearing tight sport clothes and a terrycloth headband- to his credit, he did do some impressive pushups and other strenuous exercises onstage.

Then there's Agnes- Knight's daughter. We've been told before she enters that lately she's been taking her clothes off and dancing naked in front of the mirror. When she enters, alone, she nearly immediately lifts her dress, in a wild moment of private exhibition, suddenly turning and facing upstage, which pretty much robbed it of its spontaneity**. The character has her hair falling down and obscuring her face for her first scene, and we're told that this is because she's so ugly, her parents suggested it. But then when her face is no longer obscured, she's rather adorable, so I didn't see what the problem was.

Then, finally, Knight's wife, Mrs. Sheden - "Ashley Knight" is a stage name- played by Heidi Azaro, who, at her entrance, performs some of the funniest deadpan dancing since Sylvester's bikini-clad girlfriend in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. This character is also strangely stylized- glamorous and sure, slinky and sexy, always hopping onto platforms to pose and declaim, yet the character's supposed to have never been on a stage before- Ms. Azaro at least manages to wring some humor out of her mannered attitudes, though again it seems in conflict with the core of the character.

And the accents are confusing- Knight appropriately speaks in Standard American, as any good Actor, and Lula Roca has a thick Southern accent. Fine. Ms. Tsuchigane, as Mabel, also attempts (less successfully) a Southern accent, possibly in order to create solidarity with Lula, though it seems at odds with her character's cosmopolitan clothes and attitude (and I don't know why anyone in the play has Southern accents, since we're apparently in New York or an equivalent). Mr. Ferrar, as Tube, has this odd retarded Jimmy Stewart thing going on, and the actress playing Agnes, apparently decided not to attempt to lose her (lovely, but out of place) Brazilian accent. Mrs. Sheden works the purring cultured tones of a female impersonator or Disney villainess.

And the design had me confused as to what time period we were in- an ancient radio playing 1960s songs, a modern microwave, a phone that rings with an actual bell, clothes that seemed to be from different decades...

The press kit and postcard claim that this is a multi-media staging of the work, but I only noticed one medium, that of the stage.

Also from the press kit: "The New York City based Firebrand Theory has dedicated itself to stir up public feelings by investigation of controversial issues and dramatizing the infinite mystery of the extraordinary in the ordinary. It is our Theory that Theater is a device to bring belief into action yielding a lively mix of celebration, unrest, and adventure." That's strange, since the controversial issues, such as Lula Roca's spousal abuse and impending homelessness or Knight's emotional and literal abandonment of his family, seem to be glossed over or played for laughs. No one except the leads take the play to the ordinary to discover the extraordinary in it; there's not much unrest caused by the giddy stereotypes who chew the walls of this play.

Everyone's working so hard, it's a shame that so much of this production was misguided.

Fortunately, Lee and Caine's grounded performances made the show worthwhile.

* though I recall performing a monologue from it in High School drama class; I found it in a book of monologues- this was before I knew you had to read the whole play.

** I mean, it's 2007 now, not 1963; I think the audience can handle seeing a brief flash of some knockers (there's practically some on the postcard, which shows a nearly-naked woman for no reason that's apparent) and from what jiggling backboob I could glimpse, the actress has an impressive rack. Show it off while you've got it, honey!

HEY YOU, LIGHT MAN!
Written by Oliver Hailey
Directed by Jaime Robert Carrillo
At The 45th Street Theater, Main stage Theater, 354 West 45th Street
TICKETS: $19; $12 for students and seniors. Group rates available. For reservations visit www.smarttix.com or call (212) 868-4444.
Performance Schedule: Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Sundays at 3PM through June 3rd.

Photos - Gary Ferrar and Elisa Gouveia

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