Theatre in Review: The Atmosphere of Memory (Labyrinth Theatre Company/Bank Street Theatre) Basically, there are three kinds of bad plays -- ambitiously bad, run-of-the-mill bad, and oh-my-god-this-is-indescribable. The Atmosphere of Memory falls firmly in the last category, and it doesn't waste any time getting there. It begins with a man on an analyst's couch, confessing to his doctor that he has been lying for some time: He is not, in fact a dancer; instead, he makes his living by ejaculating on objects. This is not a typo; he performs this task for others, for money. The choice of said object is determined by the client -- but, for example, he does a lively business in doing it to toys, specifically superhero action figures. Well, you can't say the playwright, David Bar Katz, doesn't know how to get your attention. But wait -- this turns out to be a scene from a play-within-the-play, an autobiographical piece about the terrible family life of the author, Jon. How autobiographical is it? Well, Jon has hired Claire, his mother, to play....his mother. (Yes, Claire was once an actress of note -- she even had to fight off the attentions of George S. Kaufman during an audition for The Solid Gold Cadillac -- but still.) Unsettlingly, Claire enters quoting Lady Macbeth. Even more unsettlingly, she reminisces about a dalliance with Harold Pinter, while she was pregnant; as she reminds Jon, "You came very close to being in the same body as Harold Pinter's penis." This psychologically volatile situation becomes positively radioactive when Jon's father, Murray, shows up, ready to sow his own brand of chaos. "I am what you call a deus ex machina," he announces. "That guy is like something the Greek gods banished," remarks a member of Jon's cast. He has a point. Dressed like an aging hipster, his shirt open perilously close to his navel, his hand obsessively rubbing his chest, Murray is a dirty old man by way of Aeschylus, a terrifyingly unleashed id who has left deep scars on his children. His idea of an amusing prank is to pretend -- just for effect -- that he was once a guard at Auschwitz. Reminded that he tried to hang himself, he insists he was merely indulging in autoerotic asphyxiation techniques. Such behavior may not be surprising coming from a man who says, "Having a penis is like having a demented murderer soldered to your body." Is it any wonder that Jon's sister, Esther, shows up, begging to be written out of his play, especially since a key scene involves her cornering her young brother in the bathtub and touching his penis. (Jon's attempts at explaining his aesthetic approach cut no ice with her.) Esther has had an especially tough row to hoe in this family; on the occasion of her first period, Claire hung her bloody bed sheet outside the family's New York apartment. Then again, Claire also saved a piece of the sheet on which Jon had his first nocturnal emission. "It's like a Jackson Pollock," she says, admiringly. Just when it seems things can't possibly get any seamier, Jon produces the hundreds of notebooks he kept as a child, consisting of transcripts of just about every conversation ever held with his family. (He has audio tapes, too.) This leads to a scene in which all four family members -- seeking forgiveness, catharsis, or a decent finale for Jon's play -- act out scenes from the past, using the notebooks as a script. Claire is the most enthusiastic participant; Esther, on the other hand, notes, "I didn't even like living it once." What makes The Atmosphere of Memory so mind-boggling is that Bar Katz is clearly a writer of talent and imagination. He's also ambitious, trying to give a black-comedy twist to such dysfunctional family classics as Long Day's Journey into Night and The Glass Menagerie -- not for nothing is Jon's play named Blow Out Your Candles, Laura. If he could pull this idea off, he'd be the new Joe Orton -- or, at least, another Christopher Durang. But sometime around the 100th lousy penis joke it becomes clear that the author is so desperate to shock that the play is thoroughly overtaken by coarseness rather than wit. It doesn't help that Jon's play, as seen here, is a farrago of styles such as no theatre has ever seen; it ranges from naturalism to Greek tragedy to Gilbert and Sullivan, complete with a musical narrator who carries an acoustic guitar. (Apropos of nothing, one sequence is rehearsed in Swedish accents.) . The author has been lucky in his collaborators, especially the company of actors, who, under Pam McKinnon's energetic direction, embrace the script's try-anything methodology. Ellen Burstyn's Claire is a perfectly sweet and charming monster, whether she his cattily dismissing the work of Julie Christie ("Anyone can be good in an Altman film") or going nuclear against Murray. John Glover appears to be having a whale of a time as Murray, reveling in every rude remark and transgressive act. Max Casella can't make Jon into a credible character, but he plays him with plenty of passion. As Esther, Melissa Ross skillfully underplays against the others, getting a number of well-earned laughs. The production also benefits from a stylish, no-frills design. David Gallo fills the all-black theatre space with a set of black furniture pieces that can be quickly rearranged from scene to scene. Dans Maree Sheehan's lighting makes especially effective use of ground rows , using uplighting effects to give each scene a highly theatrical look. Emily Rebholz's costumes and Brendan Connelly's sound design are also first-rate. But The Atmosphere of Memory is an unconvincing mess on every level. Claire and Murray are meant to be comically horrible, but, most of the time, they're just horrible. The best satire is applied with a stiletto; here, Bar Katz is armed with a sledgehammer.--David Barbour 
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