MSU Has Star Turn in “Conduct of Life”
By Ed Alderman -- Lake Charles American Press, 12/3/93
The powers that be at McNeese Theatre reserve one slot each season for a “social conscience” play, one that deals with a contemporary issue. The result can be a sweeping anti-war sentiment like “Trojan Women”; or intimate comments on gender roles like “The Secret Life of Albert Nobbs.” But rarely has Ralph Squires Recital Hall seen a message as direct, powerful and unsettling as what “The Conduct of Life” has to say about sex, violence and the role of power in both.
The play, by Cuban-born author Maria Irene Fornes, is superbly direct by guest-artist-in-residence Bonnie Cullum. The material and production conspire to hammer home the facets of domestic violence – so relentlessly so that the tender viewer must be cautioned. But warnings about “adult” material do not here refer to gutter language or nudity. Both are absent in this play, and would anyway be overshadowed by the larger, more obscene images.
Fornes sets her story in a nameless Latin American country. Though written in English, the characters speak in the short rhythms and disjointed poetry of a translation. The play begins with Orlando, a military officer, exercising his body and will through calisthenics as he broods on power and his frustration. The domestic scene that follows establishes his loveless marriage to the hyper-sensitive and neglected Leticia. A comical housekeeper, Olimpia, completes the household. She detests both her employers, and wields her command of the kitchen as a weapon to subjugate her mistress. The only visitor to the home is Alejo, a fellow officer that seems somehow apart from all he sees. But this unhappy equilibrium is shattered when Orlando kidnaps Nena, a young street girl, and imprisons her as his sexual object.
As the plot builds to a shattering climax, Fornes drops repeated cues that everyone involved is a victim of larger forces. Even the repulsively violent Orlando is somehow a slave to his emotions. What emerges is a parable of the abuse process, a paring down of the complexities involved. Yet Fornes, through her words, and Cullum, with stage techniques like the silhouettes which frame every scene, somehow keep the characters more archetype than stereotype.
Equal credit must go to a McNeese cast unflinching in its professionalism: Nye Cooper as the driven, complex Orlando; Judi Guzzy, whose Leticia is like a tangle of raw nerves; Travis Williams as the self-denied Alejo; Joetta Foshee in a brilliant turn as the twisted Olimpia; and Amy Woodruff, whose brave and honest Nena will be talked about for years to come.
The set and lighting design is perhaps Dennis Christilles best yet in Lake Charles – a web of plastic sheeting that dazzles, exposes and conceals by turns. The guitar score, composed by Austin’s Sergio R. Samayoa just for this production, is an amazing mixture that shouldn’t work but which does – superbly.
“The Conduct of Life” is not for everyone, but is a must for the theater lover with expanded horizons. The show continues at 7:30 pm today and at 2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday in Ralph Squires Recital Hall.