Cat's Cradle: Longacre Lea's Thoughtful Apocalypse
Danny Gavigan and Michael John Casey in "Cat's Cradle".
The scrappy theater group has staged an ambitious production of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, the writer's apocalyptic tale about how the family of the creator of the atom bomb unleash an even more destructive force on the world (with meditations, both sarcastic and thought-provoking, about religion and humanity along the way). Kathleen Akerley's stage adaptation is seen through the eyes of the writer Jonah (Michael Glenn), a writer who first sets out to write a book about the fictional inventor Hoenikker, but gets further and further drawn into the family's strange world, ultimately ending up on the quirky island of San Lorenzo, the site of the work's disasterous climax.
Glenn is a meditative and transfixing guide for the proceedings; the action proceeds along as a noir-ish mystery in the show's first act (be warned: there are three in the lengthy, 2 hour, 40 minute production), concluding with a somewhat puzzling dance break which gives the audience a taste of the unconvential ways of San Lorenzo. By the second act, Akerley's production strikes a better balance in conveying Vonnegut's zany, choppy style. A black box theater may seem an unlikely spot to convincingly stage a world disaster, but Akerly has an impressive trick up her sleeve to demonstrate the crumbling world.
Cat's Cradle is peppered with several intriguing characters: Michael John Casey is as effective as a crass bicycle salesman H. Lowe Crosby as he is the pragmatic and crotchety Julian Castle. Joe Brack offers a frenzied energy to the manipulative scientist Franklin Hoenikker, while Suzanne Richard is a sweet, sad presence as his younger brother Newton. The motivation behind the layered and frequently cross-gendered casting isn't completely clear: perhaps Akerly was trying to create a somewhat claustrophobic nod to Vonnegut's idea of karass, a group of people unknowingly banded together throughout life? Regardless, the drag performances from the class are largely delivered with subtle realism.
Cat's Cradle could use some tightening up, and has an ending that feels like a bit of a cheat to the original story. But Longacre Lea still delivers a thoughtful rendition of a complex, challenging work.
Cat's Cradle runs through Sept. 5 at Catholic University's Callan Theater. Tickets are available online.