Carney Folk

 

 

 

Why is it that plays featuring subplots about Christians or Christianity use that as an excuse to indulge in the worst kind of stereotyping? Christians, according to the majority of New York City theater (save some welcome exceptions, such as last year’s The Revival), are all overly made-up, cornpone-talkin’ clichés taken from the most egregious examples available from pop culture. We don’t often have sight gags involving African-American men sipping grape soda and chompin’ on watermelon or see Shylock with a hooked nose, cackling in glee at cheating his debtors; so why are Christians an exception?

 

At least, that’s what I wondered for the majority of Carnival Round the Central Figure, a dispiriting play about the circus of dying that has none of the gallows humor of, say, Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death. Jumping throughout time and location, Diana Amsterdam’s script takes in everything from the difficulty of dying with dignity to the excesses of televangelists to what makes a really good kitchen tile. In 90 minutes. Which includes a 10-minute intermission.

Of course, cramming that much in means that none of it really registers, except what director Karen Kohlhaas and her cast choose to emphasize—which, in this case, is the televangelist and his choir. In between belting songs, they shriek and moan and grimace about a dying 16-year-old girl who had sex and drank. To no one’s surprise, these Christian characters in a Downtown show come across as hypocritical assholes, co-opting a mother’s grief for ratings and making an entire religion seem like an invidious cult. And there isn’t one member of the backup singers who doesn’t do some irritating scene grabbing (not to mention that the women are all dressed like sad hookers).

There are some performers who make Carnival Round the Central Figure almost worth sitting through. Chief among them are Danni Simon and Christine Rowan, who are given actual characters and emotions to play (and who, unsurprisingly, are two of the five Actors Equity members in the 15-member cast). As the Central Figure’s co-worker Kate and wife Sheila, respectively, Simon and Rowan engage in some ladylike silent combat, as Kate tries to let him know that he’s dying and it’s OK, and Sheila chatters away hoping to exhaust Kate before she has the chance.

Those scenes, unfortunately, are too often interrupted by flashbacks to that televangelist and his flock—who eventually have some bearing on Kate and Sheila’s standoff—while Kate sometimes drops in at lectures given at the hospital by a doctor (Livia Scott, another welcome presence) about the possibility that death isn’t a given. Through it all, the Central Figure lies on an elevated bed, a silent warning/ reminder/reproach.

This Carnival is something of a reunion; 15 years ago, Kolhaas (who just directed The Collection and A Kind of Alaska for The Atlantic) directed the play with her NYU students at the Atlantic Acting School. Five of them have returned to their original roles, but the production still has the feel of students finding their way.

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Carnival Round the Central Figure
Through Jan. 30, IRT, 154 Christopher St. (betw. Washington & West Sts.), 212-352-3101; $18