Theater Review: ‘Oliver Parker!’
People cope with personal tragedy in different ways—from denial to drugs to trying to fix what they should really stay far away from. Such is the scenario presented in Elizabeth Meriwether’s fascinating black comedy Oliver Parker!
Jasper (John Larroquette) is a 60-year-old drunk living in an apartment that looks like it should have been condemned a long time ago. Amidst the endless clutter and bug-infested food, there’s a general sense of hopelessness about the place, one also evident in Jasper himself.
Jasper cares about one person, 17-year-old Oliver Parker (Michael Zegen). Oliver soon turns up bringing a supply of food and berating Jasper (something he has obviously done many times before) for not picking up the pieces of his home and life. (Oliver also pays the rent for the place, his family being quite rich.)
The two also have a dangerous symbiotic relationship stemming from an incident in the past, one that Jasper clearly instigated. Although Oliver has long since forgiven Jasper (or so he says), Jasper has not been able to forgive himself, maintaining his relationship with Oliver partly because he has nowhere else to go and partly because he desperately wants to make things right.
Oliver meanwhile wants nothing more than to have sex, currently setting his sights on Willa Cross (Johanna Day), a U.S. senator and an old friend of his family. Willa has been undergoing a personal tragedy of her own (the unsolved murder of her daughter) and has been using drugs as a support system—drugs that Oliver has been able to procure (his dad is a doctor).
Instead of coming to get them, Willa sends her assistant Agnes (Monica Raymund) to pick them up. Oliver soon begins coming on to this new woman, and Agnes, who is trying to deal with the memory of an abusive father, eventually begins to respond, albeit against her better judgment. However things don’t go quite as planned, leaving all involved continuing to fall down the proverbial rabbit hole of unresolved issues.
While the parameters of both characters seem to be established early on, Meriwether turns everything on its head as it becomes clear Oliver is the more lost of the two, flitting madly from one subject to another—both physically and emotionally—while Jasper is a sort of more grounded combination of realism and despair.
Black comedy is perhaps the hardest genre to pull off and Meriwether does an excellent job here, presenting four essentially broken people, each trying to get through the day as best they can. This is also a play that lives and dies on its characters, and thanks to some indelible performances and a heavy dose of humor, the show succeeds on a visceral and emotional level, though perhaps not always a completely realistic one.
Larroquette is superb as the defeated and tormented Jasper, seeing Oliver as his personal responsibility, even though the two should have severed contact years ago. At the same time, Oliver (nicely played by Zegen as a sort of manic cipher) needs Jasper in his life—not only because Jasper was more of a father than his real dad ever was, but also to show Jasper how he claims to have moved on with his life.
Their exchanges, where first one then the other has the upper hand emotionally, are interesting to watch. These discussions usually end with Jasper mimicking spraying Oliver with insecticide to calm things down and to stop talking about issues neither really wants to face.
If the characters of Oliver and Jasper walk the line between comedy and drama, Willa is firmly in the latter camp as a devastated mother trying do to whatever she can to simply not feel anything. Kudos to Day for bringing both a poignancy and shattered dignity to the role; the character eventually reaches out in the only way she knows how.
Raymund has fun with the role of Agnes, the character appearing in only one scene, but a pivotal one; she goes from a calm and collected senatorial assistant trying to keep her boss from going completely to pieces, to a woman who becomes swept up in her own buried passions. It’s interesting to note that while she realizes both a relationship with Oliver and getting drugs for the senator are wrong, she ends up doing what is best at the moment rather than what may be right. (It would have also been intriguing to see her appear again later in the play.)
Evan Cabnet’s direction is nicely subdued here, keeping the action moving smoothly while giving the actors free rein to go almost over the top at times, yet still keeping them within the realm of believability, at least within the parameters that are set up.
Lauren Helpern’s set of Jasper’s apartment is excellent, in a way mirroring the turmoil in the characters. Ben Stanton’s lighting is strong, especially in the final scene, and Jessica Shay’s costumes are okay.
While Oliver Parker! doesn’t delve as deeply into its subject matter as a full-on drama might, the scenarios presented certainly hold one’s interest while ultimately offering threads of hope, which may enable at least some of characters depicted to realize what is needed to begin to heal.
Oliver Parker!
Cherry Lane Theatre
38 Commerce Street
Tickets: 212-239-6200 or www.telecharge.com
Running Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Closes: June 6