Serious Daddy Issues: Barebones Delivers a Compelling “Crocodile Fever”
One of the most difficult questions a drama critic confronts is how much of the plot should be explicated during a review? I think it’s a disservice to reveal too much of a play’s action, as it denies an organic apprehension of the experience. Imagine seeing the film “Jaws” for the first time with all the surprise appearances of the shark divulged beforehand. It would make for boring and trite entertainment.
In a similar vein, the less you know about Barebones Productions’ latest effort, “Crocodile Fever” (2019), before you see it the better, as it has so many surprising, unpredictable moments.
Furthermore, a literal description of the plot would sound unbelievably bizarre, and it would only spoil what will certainly be one of the more paradigm-challenging evenings you will spend at a show.
You can tell Scottish playwright Megan Tyler is immersed in theater, film and pop-culture history, as she constantly references these worlds, and brings them crashing into each other. The style of this work might be described as plunging the dysfunctional family relationships of a Sam Shepard play into the supernatural realm of a Stephen King tale. It’s strange and alien territory, like living in the gray zone between modernism and postmodernism. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dramatic conceit like this one.
Director Patrick Jordan is, as always, very comfortable in such iconoclastic terrain. His set, cast, and directorial choices collaborate to create a production that improves upon what is provided by the playscript. It’s a risky proposition because this is the type of drama that in the hands of a lesser company might only come off as silly. Again, you’ll have to trust me on this because I can’t reveal the “big reveal,” but when you see it, you’ll get it.
Playwright Tyler offers so many allusions to other classic dramas that you could play a drinking game and end up drunk with the number of them. She pays homage not only to the aforementioned writers: Shepard (i.e. “True West,” figuratively) and King (i.e. “Carrie,” literally), but also to modernist classics such as Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” and Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” as well as to contemporary films “Thelma & Lousie,” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” That these disparate styles are blended with such insouciance is a hallmark of postmodernism. But Tyler is clever in form as well as content: in reality the first act of this two-act drama is done in the modernist style, and the second veers sharply into postmodernism. Just wait for the blackout during the scene change in this brisk, 90-minute production and you’ll understand. The fact that director Jordan doesn’t allow an intermission makes the transition all the more startling. But again, I don’t want to reveal too much as to why.
The casting choices are superb – you know a role is well-suited to an actor if you can’t imagine someone else playing it. We first meet the meek, pristine Alannah Devlin (Sara Lindsey) cleaning her already spotless, white kitchen (more about the set design below), wearing a white house dress and fluttering about like a harmless butterfly, eating crips (what we would call potato chips) to assuage her doldrums. Her tranquil world is shattered, literally by a rock through the window, followed by her wayward sister, Fianna Devlin (Phoebe Lloyd), who is dressed like a rocker and fresh out of a stint in prison for arson. The sisters live in South Armagh, an IRA stronghold in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles.” It’s a classic divergent sibling tale . . . or is it, as the more we learn about them through their dialogue the more we suspect that superficial appearances can be misleading.
Their Irish accents are solid both in their speeches (no dropping off) and throughout the play (remaining consistent) – not an easy task; thus, in addition to the actors we should credit the dialect coach Don Wadsworth. This is one of the traits Barebones excels in, thankfully, as nothing hurts a performance like poor vocal expression: just watch, for example stars such as Owen Wilson mangle any film they’re in while attempting a southern accent.
Ms. Lindsey has the most challenging character arc, as Alannah morphs – very convincingly — from a harmless butterfly to something more like Jaws in ferocity; the pent-up rage she has suppressed from years of “monstrous” treatment by her father finally breaks through her trembling façade. This fiat is certainly emblematic of our contemporary anti-patriarchal ethos, but the father’s transgressions are never explained, let alone shown. Thus, we must take them on faith, and if playwright Tyler is guilty of one major flaw, it’s telling, not showing, the source of such a violent transformation in her characters. And what began as an awkward reunion between the two sisters now becomes a revenge fantasy.
Director Jordan, who also designed the costumes (watch out Edith Head), gives Fianna a Dolores O’Riordan/Cranberries vibe, perfectly suited to this time and place. She even sports a shag haircut right out of a 1989 music video, the year the play is set. Ms. Lloyd has a gift for physical stage work, yet the emotional acuity with which she coaxes the reptilian violence out of her sister is just as impressive.
Emerging from the second floor (echoing Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending”) as the source of the sisters’ angst is their father Peter Devlin or “Da,” (Anthony McKay) whom we would like to hate based on his daughters’ attestations, but in actuality, seems as if he could be anyone’s old-fashioned, Catholic father. This makes what happens to him somewhat of a dilemma for the audience: is he such a bad man as to justify what befalls him, or are the daughters psychotic monsters themselves? Or perhaps a third option: are all three of them just didactic agents of the playwright?
The fourth character is a British soldier (Max Pavel) who makes the mistake of trying to raid the Devlin home on the night the sisters finally decide to deal with their daddy issues in a permanent fashion. Played in near darkness, this is when things get really weird. And the immaculate kitchen starts to become a terrifying character. Lighting director Andrew David Ostrowski illuminates the second act like a cinematographer plumbing the ghoulish depths of the Zone System.
Tony Ferrieri’s set is — and I mean this literally — a true canvass. There’s a reason the cabinets and shelves are so innocuously white, as they become the nefarious setting for what transpires in the second act. I thought Barebones went deliciously over the top with their climax of “True West” a couple of years ago, but this dénouement makes that one look like a couple of kids had a messy afterschool snack by comparison. Kudos to stage manager Claire Durr, special effects designer Tolin FX, and props designer/dresser Rikkilee Rose for their embellishments, which are sensational.
There is indeed an allegorical myth involving crocodiles which informs this production, but I’d rather let that unfold naturally than explain it and kill the mystery. That said, the closing musical theme, Sinéad O’Connor’s “Mandinka” is a revelatory choice to end the play and embody its sentiment. O’Connor was blowing up during the time this action transpires but was castigated as a “dangerous woman” by many commentators just three years later when she famously attacked the same patriarchal forces that these sisters engaged. “Crocodile Fever” celebrates this battle in a production that sings just as poignantly.
CROCODILE FEVER continues through October 20th at the Barebones Black Box Theatre, 1211 Braddock Ave., Braddock, $40-50. www.barebonesproductions.com
CULINARY NOTE: As we all know, post-theater dining has largely died out in Pittsburgh since the pandemic; however, attached to the Barebones theater location is the new and exciting Braddock Public House, where you can eat before or after a show. The culinary Hawaiian-Japanese theme, coupled with a brewpub, makes for a truly scintillating and delightful experience. I had the Pork Tonkatsu Sandwich, an unusual iceberg and kimchi-based house salad, and one of their artisanal cocktails, ending the night amply rewarded both aesthetically from the theater, and gastronomically from the restaurant. For more information: www.braddockpublichouse.com
Stuart Sheppard is an award-winning critic, essayist, novelist, and poet who writes “The Hamlet Machine” column for Pittsburgh Quarterly. Follow him: @HamletsMachine.
