Theatre in Review: The Whale (Playwrights Horizons)

	Tasha Lawrence, Cory Michael Smith, Cassie Beck, Shuler Hensley. Photo: Joan Marcus

Even theatregoers who think they've seen everything are likely to get a shock when the lights come up on Shuler Hensley in The Whale. Cast as Charlie, who weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 pounds, the huskily handsome actor's head and hands protrude from the enormous fat suit that Jessica Pabst, the ingenious costume designer, has devised for him to wear. Whatever Charlie might have looked like in the past, his body has grown to unmanageable proportions, devolving into an asymmetrical landscape of curves and bulges that bear only the vaguest connection to the average human form. It's an unforgettable opening image.

And it is no mere stunt: Planted on a couch at stage center, speaking in a painful wheeze that suggests that all available breath is running out, crumpling over occasionally as pains shoot through his circulatory system, Charlie is an alarmingly believable creation, thanks to Hensley's remarkable powers of transformation. When, struggling with all his might to stand, Charlie grasps the walker he uses to make it to the bathroom, a hush falls over the theatre; it's the kind of silence that ensues when an audience is in the presence of a masterful performer taking a remarkable risk.

It is made clear almost immediately that Charlie is not long for this world, but that's not to say that The Whale is an entirely bleak piece of work. Charlie teaches an online course in the fine art of term paper writing, and The Whale has some wicked fun with a few of his most irredeemable students. ("There were many aspects to the book The Great Gatsby. But I was bored by it because it was about people that I don't care about and they do things I don't understand. In conclusion, The Great Gatsby wasn't so great, LOL.") He is cared for, after a fashion, by Liz, a nurse with a scalding tongue who drops by daily to monitor his stratospheric blood pressure and urge him to check into the local hospital. Her frustration over his unhealthy ways leads to some savagely amusing banter. In response to Liz's frazzled comment that she'd like to stick a knife in him, Charlie says, blithely, "Go ahead. What's it gonna do? My internal organs are in two feet, at least."

In any case, the playwright, Samuel D. Hunter -- who has more on his mind than brittle wisecracks -- disrupts Charlie's last week on this earth with the introduction of two intruders. The first is Elder Thomas, a young Mormon who makes it his personal mission to bring the word of God to Charlie -- especially after he learns that Charlie descended into morbid obesity only after the death of his male lover. (The young man wasted away after a final, mysterious, visit to his Mormon temple.) The other is Ellie, Charlie's estranged, and thoroughly hair-raising, adolescent daughter, a pint-sized, flat-affect terror who stares out at the world from behind enormous glasses, never making eye contact. Ellie's idea of human relations is to never, ever take any prisoners; her main hobby involves trashing everyone she knows on her blog, with accompanying photographs. Taking one look at Liz, she comments, "Is she, like, your fag hag? Because it seems like she could do a lot better."

This is probably the right time to mention that, against all evidence cited above, The Whale is a remarkably compassionate piece of work. Charlie negotiates with Ellie to spend time with him, using his hefty bank balance as a bargaining chip. A sort-of relationship is struck, in which Hunter makes it thoroughly clear that behind Ellie's bellicose manner is an enormous, possibly incurable, hurt; that he does so without begging for sympathy on her behalf is no small achievement. ("I kind of hate you," she tells him. "Yes, but you hate everyone," he replies, not unreasonably.) It would be all too easy, in these post-Book of Mormon days, to play Elder Thomas' faith for laughs, and Hunter doesn't totally resist the impulse, especially when Liz dismantles the less-believable aspects of the Mormon narrative, with its constantly shifting point of view, in uproarious fashion. (To Elder Thomas' insistence that God has a plan, she adds, pointedly, "A plan that he's constantly revising.") But, in an especially intriguing turn of events, we learn that Elder Thomas is, in his own way, a lost soul -- Hint: He is traveling without a companion, as Mormon missionaries do -- and he is all the more likeable for his utterly wrongheaded attempts at saving Charlie's soul.

Hunter takes his time, laying his plans with care, and some time elapses before we realize how artfully he has ensnared this quartet -- and Mary, Charlie's rageful ex-wife and Ellie's equally terrifying mother -- in a net of secrets, lies, and self-deceptions. All of them have tried to live their lives along conventional lines and have failed spectacularly; their attempts at connection with each other are equally disastrous. But in Hunter's world, grace is not guaranteed; there is only the search for it, and that may be a source of grace in itself.

With this play and A Bright New Boise, staged two seasons ago by Partial Comfort Productions, we are introduced to a landscape unlike any other in current American dramatic literature. It's a modern Idaho of big-box stores, fast-food joints, and megachurches, a place where individuals do not thrive and loneliness flourishes like a hothouse plant. Hunter's most salient quality is his ability to describe his characters' souls in all their nakedness -- their cruelty, self-destructiveness, and staggering ineptitude in matters of the heart -- while allowing us to care deeply about what happens to them. Best of all, there isn't a sentimental bone in his body.

Hunter is lucky to have the services of the director, Davis McCallum, who has guided a talented cast into giving their very best. Cassie Beck makes the most of Liz's tart lines, but she really shines when, in a moment of stunned, silent revelation, she realizes that Charlie has lied to her all along about some terribly important matters. Cory Michael Smith turns each of Elder Thomas' half-finished sentences into a lexicon of unspoken -- but not unexpressed -- emotions, his faith masking a deep longing for acceptance. Reyna De Courcy's Ellie is a definitive study in mean-girl behavior, her infinite sadness suggested by the subtlest of means. Tasha Lawrence is equally formidable as Mary, especially when she bares a decade and a half of bitterness to the helpless Charlie. And Hensley's work is both a finely detailed characterization and an astonishing marathon effort; previously best-known as a musical theatre performer, he has in the last few seasons made his mark as a character actor. This is his finest performance yet.

The Whale has the kind of production design that doesn't get a lot of attention, but it is one of the finest I've seen all season. Mimi Lien's set, depicting the living room of Charlie's apartment, is a brilliantly detailed study of an inexpensive, prefab existence, from the sickly pink walls to the sad, worn-out furniture and clutter everywhere; even the bookshelves sag with disappointment. This naturalistic box set features a complete ceiling and enormous curved walls at right and left; it's a lighting designer's nightmare -- almost all conventional positions have been erased -- but Jane Cox manages to supply a parade of varied and surprisingly detailed time-of-day looks. The rest of Pabst's costumes are perfectly matched to the characters. Fitz Patton's sound design includes a variety of effects, including passing cars, heartbeats, the soundtrack of a porno video, and waves crashing against a beach.

The latter effect evokes the play's title, which, at different times, refers to Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and the Biblical story of Jonah and the Whale. They provide further proof that Hunter's play is a parable of sorts, and its characters, despite their astoundingly self-destructive tendencies, are desperate for some kind of spiritual solace, either from God or each other. This is brilliantly crystallized in the final, astonishing moment, a confrontation between Charlie and Ellie that raised gasps from the audience at the performance I attended. It's a fine piece of work from a writer with an utterly unique voice. Until now, Samuel D. Hunter's plays may have escaped your notice; after this, you have no excuse.--David Barbour