By Bryan Menegus, Staff Writer
Beloved children’s author and illustrator Shel Silverstein is not a name generally associated with slavery, prostitution and domestic violence, but if the Spectrum Players’ production of “An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein,” was proof of anything, its Silverstein’s ability to work in varied media and subject matter with the same subtly and humor that made works like “The Giving Tree,” household names. The show, directed in this incarnation by junior Rich Traub, consisted of a series of one act plays in a mock-Vaudevillian style, complete with short piano tunes and endearingly lousy one-liner jokes (courtesy of Paolo Perez) between acts, all hidden away in the intimacy of the Spiegel Theater.
After a short introduction to set the mood, the ‘Evening’ pulled no punches, first offering a raunchy auction which implored the audience to pay $100 for a prostitute/slave (prostitution is among the less-than-kid-friendly recurring themes), followed by a husband’s hilariously pained discussion with his wife concerning her metamorphosis into a “bag lady.” Between the nine acts, the tone varied from humorous, observational wordplay (a man who runs a ‘Watch and Dry,’ scamming people who assume he is the proprietor of a normal laundromat), to harrowing and thoroughly discomforting (a four-part skit consisting only of the words “meat and potatoes,” beginning with a husband causing his wife physical harm and ending with her trip to the electric chair). While the repeated shift from gut-busting to gut-wrenching made the emotional content that much less predictable, and therefore effective, it also left the audience reeling by intermission.
Though every act was stunningly imaginative (who would think to have hookers pedal their trade in rhymed verse?), their length tended to exceed the bounds of their content. And though this made some sections drag (‘The Lifeboat is Sinking,’ and the absolute throwaway, ‘Bus Stop,’ in particular), it was through no fault of the actors involved and never enough to capsize the overall experience.
In fact, the attention-deficit format and fittingly sparse set design helped truly showcase the talent of the actors involved and there wasn’t a weak link amongst them. The cast (Ross Greenberg, Allie Rightmeyer, Nick Pacifico, Amanda McIntyre, Paolo Perez, Chelsea Frati and Michael Quattrone) managed to shift effortlessly between husbands and wives, clerks and customers or interrogators and “criminals,” all the while maintaining the lightheartedness or grit as it arose.
By final bows it was evident that Silverstein was nearly as gifted a playwright as author, but it was also clear that the University’s theatrically-minded students are an often underrepresented faction capable of great things.
From left (David Gordon-The Chronicle)