TRUTH

ooks + arts“All I want to be is average—but with a great deal of money.”“You can’t expect everything to be altogether real all the time.”Comic ChaosFacts and truth often getmixed up in murder mysteries.Kill Me Like You Mean It,the latest production by TheStolen Chair Theatre Company,twists truth and lies into atheatrical pretzel that circlesaround itself for 90 tight,funny minutes. It’s staged in akeenly drawn cinematic styleand delivered with ironic lines(like those above) that poplike flashbulbs illuminatingthe absurdities of life anddeath—creating what directorJon Stancato ’02 calls “comicchaos out of the possibilitythat American life might actuallybe pointless.”Performed in January tosold-out audiences at The RedRoom, a small off-off-Broadwayspace on New York’s East4th Street, Kill Me is the secondproduction in StolenChair’s planned “CineTheatreTetralogy”—four plays in classicfilm styles. (The first, TheMan Who Laughs, a live silentfilm for the stage, ran in fall 2005. It hassince been published in Playing with Canons,an anthology of innovative theater adaptationsof classical texts.) Playwright KiranRikhye’s [’02] new murder mystery drawsits spirit from Eugene Ionesco’s absurdistdramas and its style from 1940s Americanfilm noir.Stancato says the play seeks to “revisitboth forms in their original context and collidethem to learn what they can teach usabout our responses to the contemporarysociopolitical climate.”From the first scene—in which AmericanPrivate Investigator Ben Farrell (Cameron J.Oro) receives a mysterious phone summonsand then witnesses the murder of the beautifulnightclub performer (Emily Otto) whocalled him—Kill Me rolls out briskly as bothwhodunit and parody-of-whodunit. Absurdistovertones are apparent in every character,including the chief suspects: AmericanFemale Publisher Lydia Forsythe (AlexiaVernon); her writer, American Playboy58 : swarthmore college bulletinJOSEPH BELSCHNERSam Dingman ’04 (left) plays a police detective in Kill Me Like YouMean It, a new off-off-Broadway play by the Swarthmore-spawnedStolen Chair Theatre Company, one of many theater groups born here.Tommy Dickie (Tommy Dickie); and his sister,American Ingénue Vivian Ballantine(Liza Wade White). The “truth”—or whateveryou can believe of it—is eventuallyexposed by American Police Detective Jones,played with great presence and vocal powerby Sam Dingman ’04.Stancato’s cinematic direction—withjump-cuts between scenes, actors revealed atodd angles, and repeated lines that seemlike zooms and close-ups—complementsRikhye’s Tommy-gun dialogue, which tumblesout in staccato phrases and arrestingaphorisms. Despite touches of color, such asMona’s red lips and Vivian’s gown—theCineTheatre is shot through with black andwhite. Stark lighting by David Bengali completesthe look. You can almost hear the oldprojector clattering in the booth behind you.Rikhye’s playful yet precise use of languageand Stancato’s well-informed directionhave attracted attention in New York’sbustling theater scene. NYTheatre.comnamed the company one of its People of the“Looks like it’s going to be a family affair. All the best affairs are.”“I don’t care about the truth. I care about the facts.”Year for 2005. Reviews ofKill Me have boosted its reputationeven further. (Readreviews and see more photosfrom the production atwww.stolenchair.com.)Kill Me is the ninth productionfor the company,which was founded byRikhye, Stancato, and eightother Swarthmoreans in2002. Dingman, also afounding member, returnedto the company for this production.Aviva Meyer ’01was the show’s managingdirector.Stolen Chair—the namecomes from a scene in a filmbiography of Molière byAriane Mnouchkine, seen ina Swarthmore theaterclass—is one of four residentcompanies of HorseTrade, an artists’ collectivethat provides access to facilitiessuch as the 32-seat RedRoom and two other downtowntheaters. In additionto its stage productions, Stolen Chair offersprofessional workshops, in-school residencies,a youth physical theater camp, andmaster classes.“Keeping a company like this going for 5years is a milestone—a real sign of achievement,”says Allen Kuharski, professor andchair of theater, who accompanied me toNew York to see the production and lingeredafter the show like a proud uncle.Swarthmore’s department—long knownmore for studying theater than for makingit—has, in recent years, spawned an impressivegroup of young actors, writers, directors,and theatrical entrepreneurs. Theseinclude Philadelphia’s Pig Iron TheaterCompany, currently led by Quinn Bauriedel’94, Dan Rothenberg ’95, and Dito VanReigersberg ’94; SaBooge Theatre of NewYork and Montreal, with Simon Harding’99; Early Morning Opera, a Philadelphiabasedcompany directed by Lars Jan ’00; FlyingCarpet Theatre of New York, with AdamKoplan ’95 as artistic director; Green Chair