Hot ‘N’ Throbbing

Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
The Illyrian Players in association with Watts Village Theater Company
Through April 10

RECOMMENDED

One of the artistic goals of director Carly Weckstein and her ensemble at Illyrian Players is to stimulate open discussion about sexuality. Whether Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s Hot ‘N’ Throbbing is to your liking or not, the goal is admirable, the direction is capable, and the opportunity for discussion ripe and ready. In fact, the production basically demands it.

Charlene (Robyn Gabrielle Lee) is a mother working hard to support her two teenaged children, the sexual and defiant Leslie Ann (Nikki Mejia) and the bookish voyeur-to-be Calvin (Jason Caceres). Her profession: writing scripts for a feminist pornographic company. It is in this that she finds a voice, otherwise squelched, that allows her to experience fortitude and liberation — in contrast to her real life where she is a victim, an enabler, and overall, quite the pushover.

Charlene’s flights of sexual imagination are acted out amid her family drama by two muses (My-Ishia Carson-Brown and Stephen Tyler Howell) as she struggles to take control of her life while meeting her writing deadline.

All lines are blurred in this play: between imagination and reality, family member and sexual accomplice, lover and abuser. The result is neither successfully surreal nor realistic. While Vogel approaches many a meaty subject, she never achieves a coherent style in her text, and while the tragedy that ensues may be brutal, it’s also predictable.

Still, many moments, as well as the play’s handling of cyclical abuse within families, play off quite successfully. Among the ensemble Thaddeus Shafer as Charlene’s violent alcoholic husband Clyde shines through. The powerlessness of everyone within the family — along with their desperation, addiction (and even love) — lure the audience into their impending nightmare.

Weckstein has bravely brought together disparate elements of the text as best one might. Still, more danger, more vulgarity, and more apparent chemistry between the two main characters is needed to really drive the message of this difficult script home.

The Illyrian Players in association with Watts Village Theater Company, Studio/Stage, 520 N Western Ave. Los Angeles; Fri & Sat 8 p.m., Sun 7 p.m.; through April 10. www.illyrianplayers.com/tickets.html Running time: 80 minutes with no intermission.

Note: For this production, the Illyrian Players have partnered with the Good Shepherd Shelter, and will be collecting donations of tampons, maxi pads, moving boxes, packing tape, coloring books, markers, crayons and colored pencils for battered women and their children. If you bring in a donation, you will receive a free beverage at the show.