Mr. Maxwell, a British poet and playwright who lives in the United States, employs clever wordplay, more than dazzling imagery, to define his characters and delve into their psyches. The author of eight plays and eight volumes of poetry, he has a sharp sense of drama and a keen ear for its language. In "Broken Journey," Mr. Maxwell has turned the samurai and his wife of the Akutagawa stories and Kurosawa's "Rashomon" into a rich toff named Andrew ("He's so rich he dropped the w and became André") and his headstrong and flighty girlfriend, Chloe ("Call me sarcophagus and queue up for hours to see me"). Returning from a snake charmer's ball, they run out of gas in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and are accosted by an aging biker who has been following them on the motorway. There is a sexual encounter and a violent death. Is it rape and murder? Seduction and suicide? Or something else? As the three give their individual accounts to the police, a paperboy, who was hiding and saw it all, waits to tell what is presumably the truth, the fourth side of the triangle. The director Ted Altschuler and his solid cast manage to hold the tension taut for most of the play's 110 minutes. The estimable Craig Smith is excellent as the biker, exuding subtle menace in every glance or gesture. Elise Stone convincingly moves from giggling intoxication to hysteria as Chloe. And Michael Surabian and Joe Rayome add fine performances as André and the paperboy. If there is one brief letdown, it is in the testimony of the victim, delivered here as a clairvoyant assisting the police. Sheila O'Malley starts with such a low level of energy that the intensity that had been building begins to ebb, although she finishes the scene in a fury. Narelle Sisson's set, built around the rear end of a Grand Am and a broken call box, and Tony Mulanix's lighting enhance the ominous sense of foreboding. But whoever had the idea to change the textual references from British soccer clubs to American football teams should rethink it. To hear two Britons discussing the rivalry between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers is jarring. |
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