Theatre in Review: A Fable (Cherry Lane Theatre) The signs in the lobby of the Cherry Lane Theatre warn attendees that A Fable contains "several acts of extreme violence," including "rape, stabbing, gunshot, and poisoning." Furthermore, we are advised, "several souls hang in the balance." It's hard to tell which statement is more facetious, for, despite an abundance of the acts listed above, David Van Asselt's new play is less a challenge to the nervous system than to one's consciousness; in other words, if there weren't so many people on stage screaming their heads off, it would be difficult to stay awake. Clearly written with the best of intentions, A Fable is an entirely misbegotten attempt at revival of the old Brecht and Weill formula of drama with a political lesson you can take home with you. It's a kind of fairy tale for progressives, in which evil (capitalism, corporations, corrupt Western governments) does battle with good (love in all its forms). The program says the play's setting is "somewhere, almost anywhere, below the equator," but we eventually learn that we are on the island of Tahooty. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is. A Fable begins with a large dose of the crimes listed above, as an invading army enters the village of Tahooty, partially blinding a farmer and raping his wife and daughter. The soldiers, who enter singing, "We're gonna rape your daughters/We're gonna butcher your sons/We're gonna pillage your village/We're gonna chill your idyll," are representative of another country, which in turn represents Ubiquitous Yield, one of those all-devouring conglomerates, that, in plays of this kind, represent unalloyed exploitation of the poor and the environment. Chuckles, one of the soldiers, notes that the family is "squatting over a very rich vein of a certain substance necessary to the manufacture of a product upon which the world has grown quite dependent." The substance is desired by a corporation named Beneficent Synthetics, or, as it is colloquially known, BS. Into this lamentable scene drops a pair of angels: Representing good is Angela, a young lady dressed in white spandex pants and a matching bustier. On the opposite side is Luke, a man of a certain age unaccountably gotten up like Willie Nelson. Of the two, Luke is harder to take, largely because he rambles on in the following fashion: "Time again, time for this great travesty, this great traveling show called life, to begin. Time for yet another worthless, muddled life to pop unbidden into the bleak world, to begin that dreary journey out of the infinite darkness from which we came and into which, at journey's end, we all return." If only to spare us more of this sort of editorializing, Angela makes a bet with Luke that Jonny, the least enthusiastic of the soldiers, has a soul worth saving. Jonny rescues Chandra, the daughter, and heads for the big city. The rest of A Fable follows them after they are separated. Jonny undergoes a Candide-like series of adventures, becoming a gangster's gofer, a financial adviser who dumps junk securities on unsuspecting customers, and a presidential candidate who vows to eliminate the island's entrenched and corrupt special interests. Chandra ends up with Biff, an associate of the gangster Rocky Fug, choosing security over love. Populating the stage are an on-the-take politician named Senator Fourhire; an executive, given to governmental bribery, named Hallie Burton; a compromised candidate named Madame Foo Want; and Cherry Worms, an actress who sings a number that goes like this: "Men are pigs oink oink/Yes men are pigs oink oink/They grunt they snort/They think you're sport/Yes, men are pigs." The tuneless melodies are by Elizabeth Swados. The cast members appear to have been chosen for their lack of singing talent. And so it goes. When another suitor says to Chandra, "I'm offering you my hand," Luke comments, "I offered a girl a hand once. She fainted." Rocky Fug, hiring Jonny, says, "I'm an evil opportunity employer." There's a saintly bag lady named Mercy, whose flatulence is nevertheless played for laughs. In a political debate, Foo Want announces, "BS makes a strong economy." Angela, fed up with Jonny's shilly-shallying, shouts, "Wake up, Jonny. While you sit doing nothing, your leaders are raping the planet!" (Nobody says their lines when they can scream them.) And Hallie, Rocky, Fourhire, and Luke give us "The Corruption Song," with lyrics like the following: "When business is slow/Needs get up and go/Let's start a war/Government contracts galore/Do you think we dread/Ten thousand dead/That's a small price to pay/ For ten million tucked away!" Daniel Talbott's production never finds a way to comically stylize A Fable's chaotic action, and, given the general witlessness of the script, probably nobody could. The cast is stuck with these shrieking, mirthless caricatures and most of them seem stymied by their tasks. Hubert Point-Du Jour fares best as Jonny, possibly because he must play straight man to the rest of the cast. Samantha Soule puts her considerable stage presence to good effect as Angela. Dawn-Lyen Gardner and Alok Tewari are passable as Chandra and her put-upon father. The rest of the cast mugs ferociously. As Luke, Gordon Joseph Weiss draws out each word he says oh-so-slowly, until you want to surrender to the forces of evil yourself. John McDermott is an especially resourceful designer, and his three-level set is an artfully painted display of an environment ruined by greed and runaway development; a series of moving panels keeps the action shifting to various locations at a good clip. Tristan Raines' costumes are frequently vulgar, but that is probably what was wanted, and he certainly conjures up a wide variety of styles as the occasion demands. Joel Moritz's lighting often results in very attractive stage looks, but at any given moment the actors' faces are obscured by darkness. Kaitlyn Pietras has supplied a variety of effective projections--for the countryside, trees, smoke-belching factories, and television news, but the effect of these is partly spoiled by some clumsily executed fade-to-black cues. Janie Bullard's sound includes an effective storm sequence, although the recorded music sounds awfully tinny. The most pernicious effect of A Fable is that, in its earnest desire to convict every capitalist and politician in sight, its message backfires. I am personally in agreement with virtually every point made by the author and yet, by the end of Act II, I was ready to make a large donation to the Koch brothers. This cannot be what was intended.--David Barbour 
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