Playwright: Gary Owen. At: Actors Revolution Theatre at the Athenaeum, 2936 N. Southport. Phone: 773-935-6860; $15-$20
Runs through: Feb. 17
None can deny the exalted status bestowed on individuals beautiful in both body and soul, but apparently Welsh playwright Gary Owen didn't think audiences would get the point unless he created a futuristic dystopia where grotesquely misshapen citizens propose to eradicate all 'perfect' members of their species, whose very existence exacerbates envy and discontent among the populace. We're not talking simple genocide, however, for the mere touch of a 'radiant'—dead or alive, whole or dismembered—has the capability to transform the most hideous Caliban into the daintiest Ariel.
The trouble with futuristic dystopias is that they have a way of being more interesting than what the author has happen in them. Since the dynamic of the four characters in this American Premiere production can be summarized as 'Ugly Girl loves Ugly Boy, but Ugly Boy loves Pretty Girl, who loves Pretty Boy,' and since most of the action is conveyed by recitation of unseen events and introspective musings, we soon find ourselves wondering just how civilization-as-we-know-it came to this condition—food rationing, death squads, a homeland security chief called 'The Inquisitor,' the illegal sale of 'radiant relics'—and precisely how this new system of government works. What does it mean that Pretty Boy and Ugly Girl both invite their own death, while Pretty Girl and Ugly Boy come to an 'understanding'?
Without a coherent analogy to define our dramatic universe, we are too preoccupied with orienting ourselves to speculate on Owen's arguments. Whatever urgency or significance his exotic setting was to impose on the familiar young-male-artist fantasy of homely heroes winding up with the Hot Chick ( after she has compromised her desirability by, among other humiliations, having sex with him ) is irreversibly impeded by the sheer ambiguity of its environment.
The actors of the Artists Revolution Theatre, under the direction of John McCormick, strive mightily to assist us in our comprehension, delivering composed, inexcessive performances befitting characters looking back upon their anguish in retrospect. And visual interest is provided by a Max Fleischer-style opening image of a radioactive figure gradually stripped of his/her glowing raiment, as well as by a gimmick allowing bloody ghosts to pop out of the drab walls. But The Drowned World appears more suited, in both structure and content, to the leisurely introspection of a novel than to the abbreviated externalization required of live theater.