Buzz. Gemini & Scorpio Loft (see Off-Off Broadway). By Benjamin Kunkel. Directed by Lian Walden. With Trevor Kluckman, Jeri Silverman. Running time: 1hr 40mins. No intermission.
Buzz: In brief
A pregnant woman and her boyfriend try to rid their apartment of flies in a climate-change allegory by novelist, critic, Marxist and n+1 magazine founder Benjamin Kunkel. Lian Walden directs the American premiere in a Brooklyn loft.
Buzz: Theater review by Jenna Scherer
Tom (Kluckman) and Sasha (Silverman) are an artsy, well-to-do couple wracked with doubt over garden-variety things, including (but not limited to) the flies infesting their apartment, the child gestating in Sasha’s womb and the hypothetical end of the world. “I’m doing this thing lately where I’m in the play,” Sasha announces early on. How meta! Also, she's in her underwear. Actually, everyone’s in their underwear. Because vulnerability.
Benjamin Kunkel, the coeditor of hipster lit mag n+1, packs his theatrical debut with countless such clunky gimmicks. You could play contemporary-theater bingo with this thing: Agonized playwright dude who can’t seem to get started on his masterwork? Tortured metaphors about climate change? Fatuous intellectual blather about the death of art? It’s all there. Lian Walden’s ensemble digs into the play’s more genuine moments, like when Sasha teases out her relationship anxiety over the course of a sleepness night, but they’re few and far between. Buzz loves to hear itself bloviate. And in the Gowanus loft where it’s staged, the audience is seated so close to the action, you can only hope the actors don’t see your eyes roll.—Theater review by Jenna Scherer
THE BOTTOM LINE A pretentious meditation on global warming and art leaves us rather cold.