Advertisement
Stay in the Loop
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free.
New City's "Extremities'
Tom Purdom
Three women and a sociopath
TOM PURDOM
I have a writer friend who likes to note all the movie and book plots that wouldn’t work today because the hero could foil the villain by calling for help on his cell phone.
The New City Stage Company production of Extremities circumvents this difficulty by adding some dialogue and business that explains why the rape victim doesn’t hit 911 as soon as she realizes she has an intruder in her living room. The updates work well enough, but I don’t think the play would have lost anything if New City had set it in the early 1980s, when it was written. The dilemma confronting the three women characters is essentially timeless, despite the changes that have taken place in the handling of rape cases.
In Extremities, Marjorie (Alana Gerlach) is assaulted in her New Jersey living room. She sprays an insecticide in her attacker’s eyes and manages to lock him in her fireplace, behind an improvised barrier. Then Marjorie and her two roommates must decide what to do next.
Beyond Farrah Fawcett
I’ve been intrigued by Extremities ever since I first heard about it, but I’d never seen the play or the Farrah Fawcett movie based on it. I spent the whole running time wondering how the author would resolve the situation, just as playwright William Mastrosimone undoubtedly hoped I would. Would the women kill the rapist? Would they let him go and run the risk that he’d carry out his threat to come back and scar Marjorie? Would they turn him over to the police, knowing he could beat the rap and even have Marjorie charged with assault?
As the rapist (Paul Felder) points out, he didn’t succeed in raping Marjorie, and she can’t point to any visible evidence she was assaulted. He, on the other hand, has ample evidence that she attacked him.
The three women struggle with a quandary that has confronted many groups: What do you do when the law can’t— or won’t— protect you?
No good choices
Mastrosimone’s conclusion trivializes my fretting about the specific option the women will select. His final moment underlines the hard truth that it’s an irrelevant issue. Whatever they choose, their lives have been permanently altered for the worse.
Extremities is a strong play with a powerful central idea. The New City production is believably acted and efficiently and unobtrusively directed. The two principals are particularly good. In the rape scene, Alana Gerlach works with an emotional spectrum that runs from overwhelming terror to sly, ingratiating whorishness when she sees her opportunity to strike back. Paul Felder is still a senior acting student at the University of the Arts, but he creates a credible, properly exasperating picture of a sociopath.
TOM PURDOM
I have a writer friend who likes to note all the movie and book plots that wouldn’t work today because the hero could foil the villain by calling for help on his cell phone.
The New City Stage Company production of Extremities circumvents this difficulty by adding some dialogue and business that explains why the rape victim doesn’t hit 911 as soon as she realizes she has an intruder in her living room. The updates work well enough, but I don’t think the play would have lost anything if New City had set it in the early 1980s, when it was written. The dilemma confronting the three women characters is essentially timeless, despite the changes that have taken place in the handling of rape cases.
In Extremities, Marjorie (Alana Gerlach) is assaulted in her New Jersey living room. She sprays an insecticide in her attacker’s eyes and manages to lock him in her fireplace, behind an improvised barrier. Then Marjorie and her two roommates must decide what to do next.
Beyond Farrah Fawcett
I’ve been intrigued by Extremities ever since I first heard about it, but I’d never seen the play or the Farrah Fawcett movie based on it. I spent the whole running time wondering how the author would resolve the situation, just as playwright William Mastrosimone undoubtedly hoped I would. Would the women kill the rapist? Would they let him go and run the risk that he’d carry out his threat to come back and scar Marjorie? Would they turn him over to the police, knowing he could beat the rap and even have Marjorie charged with assault?
As the rapist (Paul Felder) points out, he didn’t succeed in raping Marjorie, and she can’t point to any visible evidence she was assaulted. He, on the other hand, has ample evidence that she attacked him.
The three women struggle with a quandary that has confronted many groups: What do you do when the law can’t— or won’t— protect you?
No good choices
Mastrosimone’s conclusion trivializes my fretting about the specific option the women will select. His final moment underlines the hard truth that it’s an irrelevant issue. Whatever they choose, their lives have been permanently altered for the worse.
Extremities is a strong play with a powerful central idea. The New City production is believably acted and efficiently and unobtrusively directed. The two principals are particularly good. In the rape scene, Alana Gerlach works with an emotional spectrum that runs from overwhelming terror to sly, ingratiating whorishness when she sees her opportunity to strike back. Paul Felder is still a senior acting student at the University of the Arts, but he creates a credible, properly exasperating picture of a sociopath.
Sign up for our newsletter
All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.
