There’s a lot to like in Caroline V. McGraw’s Tall Skinny Cruel Cruel Boys (at Washington Ensemble Theatre through June 24; tickets): For one, there’s Hannah Victoria Franklin’s monstre-sacré performance as Brandy, a self-destructive clown-artist working the birthday-party beat. (She explains to a young admirer that clowning is more of a post-grad career path.)
For another, there’s the circus-tent set by Pete Rush and a huge red claw under the bed (courtesy Jake Nelson and Marcanthony Lee). And for a third, there’s McGraw’s gonzo-playwriting: unapologetic, lacerating, and wrongly funny.
Brandy is right up Franklin’s force-of-nature hurricane-alley; as a friendly gesture, she spikes a high school student’s drink with her flask and then fucks him. (A high point in self-awareness deficits is when Brandy snarls, “UNBELIEVABLE!” and doesn’t mean herself.)
But in fairness to her, she does have this giant red claw who lives under her bed and has given her a fiery rash, a would-be clown collaborator named Reverb (Scott Ward Abernethy) to deal with, and frisky father of bratty Albert (Billy Gleeson) following her and her gambling problem around Atlantic City. (Sound designer Andrew Samora may be responsible for the audio joke that begins with the first part of the “Viva, Las Vegas” rousing chorus, but substitutes a deflated “Atlantic City” for Las Vegas.)
Improbably, Franklin and Abernethy both clown well — director Jane Nichols, notes Brendan Kiley, has taught clowning at Yale’s School of Drama, and you feel very grateful for that once it’s clear that it’s going to be part an integral part of the play.
Brandy’s opening bit with a blue violin is passable as children’s entertainment, but there’s actually something poignant and wonderful to what the duo come up with later on (a reworking of Sesame Street‘s “Menomina”). And Abernethy’s Reverb grows on you, as playwright McGraw lets you know that he is struggling with confidence issues, too.
Kate Kraay has some highlight reel moments as Nina, the mother of a birthday girl, Frances, who thinks Brandy is the funniest thing ever. Nina is an independent, well-off single mom — when Brandy assumes she’s married, she roars back: “Married? What do I look like?” — who begins to inject a little reality-checking into Brandy’s hall-of-mirrors world-view. She begins a brittle narcissist (the kids in the play are stuffed dolls, the playthings of their parents), but Kraay gives her such self-possession, and even bravery, that you can see why Brandy would turn to her.
McGraw is less successful sustaining dramatic interest in the two high school characters, Jack (Jay Myers), and his girlfriend Tash (Sami Spring Detzer), who eventually corners Brandy and Jack canoodling. Detzer has fun with her indomitable goodie-two-shoes part, but the sequence where Tash fights the dragon claw feels a bit like sermonizing on the virtues of good self-esteem (while the previously scary claw turns blowhard). Coming just after a scene requiring an ugly, freak-show level of commitment from Franklin, it’s hard to swallow.
Nichols’ inventively moves the characters on and off the single set without the conventional scene-change blackouts, one moment blurring into the next, but that’s one time you wish for a more substantial beat between scenes.
