Theatre in Review: How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store (The Forty Hour Club/La MaMa E.T.C.)

	Photo: Benjamin Gustafson

How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store is the title of Mike Gorman's new play, but it's also the title of a play in Mike Gorman's new play. The first 15 minutes or so introduces us to the artistic director, the in-house playwright, and other members of the creative staff of the Mad Horse Theater. You can tell that they're supposed to be artists because they pose, strut, and speak in master-thespian voices. In fact, they do everything but wear T-shirts that say, "I'm a phony. Kick me."

They're a bunch of oppressors, too. First, there's the little matter of the mentally challenged enslaved figure whom they keep locked up in the basement. Then there's the homeless playwright who submits a work (Hint: it has "cheese" in the title). The artistic director responds to this submission by licking the title -- which has been written out in some kind of spray cheese ---right off the front page. He decides to take on the playwright as kind of intern/factotum, sending him out to hang posters around the city. But the playwright turns out to be a craftier sort, who confronts one and all, sending them into psychological tailspins. They're a jittery bunch, mind you; when confronted with the newspaper, they run away, screaming. Also, each one has some kind of epiphany in which, trapped in a spotlight and maddened by the sound of horses' hooves, he or she flees upstage in a panic toward the statue of a rearing on its hind legs.

I can't really say much about How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store except to note that it amounted to the most boring and baffling experience I've had in a theatre in more than a year. Clearly, Gorman has had some bad experiences in the not-for-profit world, an environment that could use a little satirical goosing now and then. But, as far as I can tell, Gorman; his director, Dave Bennett; and the cast are working out some kind of private joke whose meaning was entirely lost on me.

I will add that the cast gave many indications of being better than the material and direction, an impression I hope to confirm when I see them again under happier circumstances. The production features a simple platform with classroom desks by Donald Eastman, with the upstage horse created by Gregory de la Haba. Gabriel Berry's costumes feel appropriate to each character. The lighting, by John Eckert, switches fairly constantly between objective reality and various interior states, the latter indicated by the abundant use of orange gel. Tim Schellenbaum's sound design, the source of those stampeding horse noises, is perfectly fine.

It's not often that I leave a theatre completely unable to say how or why a production happened, but that's the case here. Gorman may be right about the inadequacies of certain theatre artists, but, from where I sit, he ought to take a look in the mirror first.--David Barbour