If "Popcorn", Ben Elton's black farce based on his 1996 comic novel of the same name, actually considered the issues it raises rather than simply exploiting them, this superficial script might be worth serious consideration. One wonders just what other new comedies were on in London when it received its 1998 Olivier award. As one might anticipate from a former standup comic and experienced sit-com writer, the gags come fast and furious and the situation, however bizarre, is derived solely from a cynical British view of the California life style derived from the popular media. This attitude works well in prose, but when transferred to the stage and given a basically realistic production, as in the case of Zeitgeist's current effort, whatever points might be made barely register.
Director/designer David J. Miller once again showed considerable craft in creating a production using stylized verisimilitude in the BCA Black Box theatre space. His cast was competent and more or less believable. But by basically once again just putting on a play that interests him, the final result was mildly entertaining rather than thought provoking. Violence as entertainment and the consequences of that phenomenon certainly deserve exploration, but this show skims the surface of the question, moreso than Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". The uproar over that film, and its possible influence on a pair of French spree killers, purportedly inspired the original book, Elton's fourth bit of light reading.
The evening begins with film director Bruce Delamitri, played with moderate earnestness by Stephen Epstein viewing clips from violent films to be used to introduce his Acedemy Award nomination. The ceremony is that night and the producers have rejected all his best, most graphic scenes, a situation which Karl Brezner his producer, played without much bravura by George Saulnier III is trying to resolve. Bruce's teenage daughter, Velvet, played sympathetically by Caryn Andrea Lindsey is there waiting to be picked up by the director's estranged wife. The whole things seemed more like a situation from a nighttime soap than the opening of a satirical comedy or even a police drama, since the audience knew what's coming. They saw the poster. When Jennifer Huth showed up as Farrah, the soon-to-be ex, the situation didn't change. All these people were played just a bit to seriously, in costumes by Tracy Campbell that wouldn't much draw attention on the street, though they were nicely coordinated.
It's not until an inset scene in one featuring the two Mall Murderers, Wayne and Scout played by Jesse Soursourian and Susan Gross that the script gets serious about comedy. The whole evening would be much different if these two started the show which then segued into Bruce watching his clips. Unfortunately, when the pair invade his house after a brief inset scene upstage where this rebel director accepts the Oscar he was sure he wouldn't win in uncharacteristically gracious fashion, the writing again descends to sit-com level, this time to stereotypical white trash appreciation of the grandeur of his dwelling. We know they're there for a reason, but the revelation is too long coming and too contrived. Soursourian and Gross were the performers most in tune with the show's black comedy, and Gross made the most of Scout's naivete and skewed world-view, and in her patriotic miniskirt and high boots was the only one really dressed to kill.
The weakest part of the play begins when Bruce returns with Brook Daniels, a Playboy centerfold turned actress-- the show's stalest running joke--and a predictable seduction ensues, which includes an entertaining pantyhose stip-tease routine. It was inevitable that Zeitgeist regular Naeemah A. White-Peppers play this role. While there's nothing beyond her repertoire in the part, there's nothing in the script to capitalize on her African-American presence either, even when Brook draws a gun on Bruce to prove she can be scarey and should be in his next picture. It would have been more interesting to cast some pneumatic blond as this ambitious nude model and have White-Peppers play the avaricious wife. The part of Velvet could easily have been done by any one of several talented young local actresses of color.
The rest of the show offered a few surprizes, usually punctuated by gunshots, but the denouement is basically manipulative claptrap, followed by a coda worthy of SNL. However, sketch comedians would have gotten the whole thing over in about ten minutes. Perhaps if the show had been cast and directed to punch up its absurdity, the debate near the end might have occurred at a pitch which demanded attention. As it was, that moment was just more of the same. Perhaps the confusion of TV and reality has become so commomplace that Elton's original observations and cynical moral outrage no longer have enough weight to carry a full length play, even one that's moderately well produced and acted with some panache.