Lifeline Theatre’s Mrs. Caliban Gives Us The Heebie Jeebies

By Julienne Bilker in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 24, 2010 9:20PM

One of the best pieces of advice we’ve been given regarding theatrical criticism is this: approach the piece on its own level. To give an elementary example: it’s not fair to see a Shakespeare play and complain that the language isn’t modern enough. Mrs. Caliban, Frances Limoncelli's adaptation of the Rachel Ingalls novel now in its world premiere at Lifeline, falls into the “magical realism” genre. Ready to suspend our disbelief even more than usual, we took our seats feeling prepared for what we were about to see. A lonely, bored housewife thinks the radio is telling her that her husband is having an affair. Fine. The radio also informs her that a very dangerous lizard man has escaped from a local institution, which is confirmed by her husband’s morning paper. Fine. Said lizard man arrives at the aforementioned housewife’s doorstep, and she gives him food and shelter. Fine. The housewife has a passionate love affair with the lizard man. NOT FINE.

We tried. We really, really tried. But the almost immediate, intense connection between Dorothy, the housewife (Brenda Barrie) and Larry, the lizard man (Peter Greenberg) was just too much for us. We absolutely understood Dorothy’s fascination with the creature -- she and her husband are “ too unhappy to get a divorce,” and the inertia of domesticity is slowly driving her insane -- Larry (named by the scientists at “the institution”) is new, exciting and dangerous. Being from a completely different world, as he says, he’s also comically foreign, preferring to subsist on avocados and snack on boxes of corn flakes rather than the corn flakes themselves. His unusual predilections and lack of human understanding are endearing and childlike, not sexy. It’s not his physical appearance (he’s painted green) that keeps the whole scenario from making sense to us, it’s that he’s a lizard.

If this show was a comedy, we’d have had an easier time. There are some great one-offs surrounding Larry’s ineptitude as a human, but the sincerity and gravity of the pair’s cloyingly melodramatic relationship renders these jokes incongruous. Lest you think we’re missing the larger picture, we assure you, the message isn’t lost on us. United by their extreme sense of isolation, Dorothy and Larry do have a reason to be connected, but - we realize we're repeating ourselves - we couldn't get past their sexual relationship. To be honest, the poetically staged love scenes made us cringe a bit. We did our best to pull ourselves back to neutral, but after Dorothy stated that she would be "delighted" if she happened to be pregnant with Larry's baby, we were gone for good.

That being said, Barrie's earnest performance is admirable and graceful. Fully committed to each moment, her portrayal feels truthful and open. Which just serves to highlight the script's failures - we're willing to bet that if this woman can't make it work, no one can. There are some beautifully pitiful moments between Dorothy and her unfaithful, cowardly husband, Fred (Dan Granata), with the two somehow able to evoke a maddening sense of lifelessness while tension hangs over them like a sad, dense fog. But this play is not about them. This play is about Dorothy and her lizard lover.

If any of you happen to catch this one, we'd be interested to know if you agree with us or not. Perhaps we're just too prudish and/or closedminded to accept this brand of interspecial romance.

Mrs. Caliban, through March 28. Tickets $15-$30. Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave, 773-761-4477.