Theatre in Review: Belleville (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Greg Keller and Maria Dizzia. Photo: Joan Marcus

If there was an award for most merciless play of the year, Belleville would take it handily. Amy Herzog's new play is not so much a dissection of an unhappy marriage as it is a vivisection; she all but flays her characters alive, for our horrified fascination. I'm still not sure if I liked Belleville, but not for a split second did my attention wander.

Belleville has been described as a psychological thriller -- and such elements as a frequently wielded butcher knife of alarming proportions, a break-in, and an air of mounting menace certainly support this description -- but in some ways Herzog seems to be intent on deconstructing the genre. Instead of generating mechanical thrills, she picks people apart, holding back crucial information until we can stand it no longer.

Her main victims -- I mean characters -- are Abby and Zack, young marrieds in their late 20s living in Belleville, the racially mixed, bohemian Paris neighborhood. It's exactly the kind of happening place in which to enjoy a romantic idyll in the world's most beautiful city. From the moment the lights come up, however, trouble is brewing. Abby comes home unexpectedly to find Zack engrossed in a pornographic video on his laptop, a fact that she tries to laugh off, with little success. She also can't understand why he isn't at work, doing AIDS research for Doctors Without Borders. It's Christmastime, and Abby dearly wants to be home in the States with her sister who is about to give birth, but, thanks to an unexplained problem with their visas, they can't leave France without risking the right to return.

Herzog shows at some length the apparent dependencies in Abby and Zack's relationship. A would-be actress, Abby works as a part-time yoga teacher, a job that provides little satisfaction. ("To be an actor you have to love to suffer, and I only like to suffer," she admits.) She is still shattered by the death of her mother, some years before, and is trying to wean herself off a regimen of mood elevators. She has agreed to move to Paris for Zack's career and believes she is making a good-faith effort to thrive there, but her unhappiness is palpable.

At the same time, we see that Zack, who is deeply devoted to Abby, is collapsing under the burden of trying to satisfy her. Their sex life is troubled, possibly because of the effects of her pills; nevertheless, he opposes her decision to abandon them, fearing another round of suicidal depressions. He also displays an alarming dependency on pot to get through the day. And, with some reason, he deeply resents Abby's obviously too-close attachment to her father, with whom she shares daily international phone calls.

Much of this information is conveyed to Alioune, their genial Senegalese landlord -- and just about all of it is true -- yet Herzog is cunningly painting a false picture. Alioune, who appears at first glance to be Zack's pot buddy, drops the bomb that the rent hasn't been paid for four months; he quietly informs Zack that unless the money is raised in two days, he and Abby will be out on the streets. From this point on, the young couple's life is revealed to be a perilous construction of lies and fantasies, all of which are set to come crashing down. I dare not say any more, except to add that Herzog holds back the full truth for a sadistically long time, letting ever-more-dismaying details trickle out, providing additional confirmation for our growing assurance that something terrible will happen.

Under Anne Kauffman's astute direction, a quartet of fine actors nails each of their characters like butterflies to a wall. Maria Dizzia's Abby is a frightened, angry girl trying to be an adult and failing on all accounts. When the phone rings, she grabs for it, seeking more attention from her father; she even tries to wrestle the phone out of Zack's pocket during a lovemaking session. She asks Alioune to guess to her age, and when he is off by four years she all but collapses in despair. Abby is a self-involved, highly critical motormouth, and Dizzia is especially good at handling Abby's accidentally soul-baring monologues. Making conversation with Alioune, she says, "I especially love this neighborhood, I love the -- um, well I hate the word 'diversity,' I just feel like a button on a denim jacket in the late eighties -- oh god, there's no way you get that reference, but it's so -- but, you know, there's a lot of life here, I don't feel like I'm living in an artifact, and it's nice not being the only, um, foreigners, you know, feeling like we are among others making a life in this sometimes hostile ..." She trails off there, having once again offered too many words and too little meaning.

Greg Keller's Zack is a clinical match for Abby's pathology, treating her more like a patient, a child to be managed than a partner or a lover. (He has a slightly high-pitched, faintly singsong manner with her, which seems designed to soothe her but which more often seems to set her off.) But there's also something oddly evasive about him, which sets off increasingly loud rounds of alarm bells. Keller's deft way with silences, his skill at throwing back questions in his inquisitor's face, and his at times strangely dismissive manner are especially useful here. And when the truth finally comes out, it falls to him to explain it, which he does while skillfully revealing the sickness at the heart of Zack's soul.

Providing solid support are Phillip James Brannon as Alioune, who watches from the sidelines, realizing with mounting dismay he doesn't really know Zack and Abby, and Pascale Armand as Amina, Alioune's increasingly disgusted spouse. (The stare that she fixes on Abby, who is trying to explain how, in a drunken fog, she destroyed Amina's portable baby monitor, is so fierce you wonder why Abby doesn't turn into a pillar of salt.)

Kauffman's production also has a first-class design. Making her Off Broadway debut, Julia C. Lee provides a picture-perfect replica of a top-floor Paris flat, the walls oddly angled to accommodate the mansard roof, the room furnished with junky, mismatched bits of furniture. Working without overhead positions -- the set has a full ceiling -- Ben Stanton creates a series of alluring and highly naturalistic time-of-day looks, adding to the sense of menace as the action turns increasingly dark. Mark Nagle, another Off Broadway debutant, has come up with costumes that are eminently suitable to each character. Robert Kaplowitz's sound design blends his own music with bits of pop tunes (Eartha Kitt singing "C'est Si Bon") along with street sounds and the wail of a police alarm.

My only reservation about Belleville is I'm not entirely sure what Herzog is getting at. Her previous plays displayed a notable toughness of mind, but in each of them she retained a certain affection for her characters (less so, admittedly, in the recent The Great God Pan). Here, she is writing with a scalpel; I suppose you can say that Abby and Zack are representative of certain members of their generation; having been raised without moral absolutes, they can't quite see beyond their own noses and are thoroughly blind to the consequences of their actions. There were times when I wondered why I should care about Abby and Zack -- even as, admittedly, I breathlessly awaited the next revelation. Belleville is a frankly ugly play, but its ugliness is ruthlessly alive. You might hate it, but you won't feel neutral about it.--David Barbour