In the Boom Boom Room

Reviewed by Pauline Adamek
2Cents Theatre at the Hudson Backstage
Through August 3

David Rabe’s play is over 40 years old, and it’s now a dated but charming curiosity piece. Performed on Broadway in 1973 (and nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play), Rabe’s strange and messy drama has been revised and remounted a few times over the years, expanding to a three-act play before returning to its present two-act form. Even so, In the Boom Boom Room runs over two and a half hours with intermission.

The play proves to be a fascinating attempt by an educated male playwright to understand and present the psyche of a poorly educated female protagonist wrestling with her sense of identity during a tumultuous era. Set during the preceding decade, i.e. the swinging 1960s, the play introduces us to its bubbly heroine as she embarks on a career as a dancer. Voluptuous, naive and enthusiastic, Chrissy (Kate Bowman) is a novice go-go dancer in a seedy nightclub. She articulates her dreams of achieving stardom through ballet, but there’s no indication of former training or even any comprehension of what’s entailed with that challenging vocation. Instead, she gyrates to popular music wearing skimpy outfits for leering men.

Chrissy seems to love the attention but doesn’t know how to handle the men and women who enter her life. There’s an effete and intrusive neighbor, Guy (K. C. Lindley), who declares that he’s gay while rifling through her things. A goofy suitor Eric (Corby Sullivan) repels Chrissy with his sappy protestations of love. Two thuggish “crims” — club patrons — Al (Eric Geller) and his scrawny sidekick Ralphie (Juan Lozano) barge into Chrissy’s apartment and dominate her world, meeting little resistance. Susan (Kristina Miller), the most experienced dancer at the club, takes Chrissy under her wing, but their friendship eventually suffers an irreparable fracture. Meanwhile Chrissy struggles to comprehend some vague memories of perplexing abuse that occurred when she was a child.

Scenes involving her parents Harold (Cris D’Annunzio) and Helen (Theresa Tilly) are not well handled by the inconsistent lighting design. At first there appears to be a nice frisson as the audience ponders if these scenes are real or simply the product of Chrissy’s vivid imagination and symptomatic of her increasing psychosis. Then a scene between the parents (minus Chrissy) torpedoes that theory.

Some of the actors speak with a strangled regional accent to reflect the play’s Philadelphia setting, but it mostly comes across as either a drawling surfer dude (think Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridegmmont High) or some accent reminiscent of New York’s outer boroughs.

The dance scenes featuring pretty women with bouffant hairdos clad in costumes of sequins, vinyl go-go boots, bras and tassels certainly liven up the evening with eye candy, while Bowman’s vivacious and gutsy performance as Chrissy earns our emotional investment.

Under Kristen Boule’s imaginative but scattershot direction, the acting styles and general pitch ranges wildly from nervy intensity to hyper-reality, always pushing for the comedic moment and not always succeeding. The occasionally high-flown and sometimes dated dialogue adds to the uncertain tone, even incorporating some heavy duty old time racial slurs. Thanks to some unexpected moments, the play feels more like a drunken night out than a fully formed play, and its burgeoning feminist thesis doesn’t gel. Additionally, the actors should not be competing with the sound design’s decibel level, in order to be heard.

Nevertheless, this dimwitted girl’s journey is more interesting than most. Watching her plunge deeper into her obsession with Astrology, coupled with an exploration of her subconscious, leads her to a neurotic state battered by her many encounters.

2Cents Theatre at the Hudson Backstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through August 3. (323) 960-7785, 2centstheatre.com