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THEATER BEAT

A toxic take on childhood

The pre-show scene at Rude Guerrilla's "Mercury Fur" is almost worth the price of admission: You walk into a dim black box, assailed by
punk music.

The stage is littered with pizza boxes, dirty diapers, broken chairs, the surrounding walls spray-painted with obscenities.

Sibling party planners Elliott and Darren (Scott Barber and Justin Radford) have an important client coming. Given the state
of "Mercury's" outside world--rioting, mass suicides, imminent bombing--it's almost no surprise to learn the party centerpiece is
actually a small boy (Ethan Tryon-Vincent), about to be the star of a snuff film. Ugly stuff, but the brothers need the gig,
so they leave the dirtiest work to a street urchin (Peter Hagen) and a cross-dressing lover (Alexander Price).

Ridley, a British playwright and filmmaker, specializes in childhoods protracted by catastrophe: His protagonists are mostly
cornered child-men, trying to face adult problems (poverty, death, war) with nursery-sized emotional tools (games, stories). The
results usually involve hearts and limbs breaking.

Rude Guerrilla understands that sometimes theater needs to be in very bad,almost toxic, taste to do its job. But its production, the
U.S. premiere, does make missteps. Some of the cast haven't developed the technical skills to handle Ridley's stylized language
and Jacobean tone, and director Dave Barton's pacing can get sluggish--tough when this 2 1/4-hour show runs without an
intermission.

But the production is held together by the company's commitment to the material, and, above all, a terrific performance by Barber,
whose knowing, too human Elliott tracks every moment around him with wary pain.

"Mercury Fur" insists on its darkness but also its theatricality, and this scrappy Orange County group wins points for essaying such
difficult material.

--Charlotte Stoudt

"Mercury Fur," Rude Guerrilla Theater Company, 202 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m. Thursday, March 15. Ends March 17. $10-$18. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

There are two ways of looking at Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's staging of "Mercury Fur," the first-time British playwright Philip Ridley's 2005 drama has been produced in the United States.

One is to overlook flaws in both the production and the script and to applaud the always brave folks at Rude G for having the guts to mount something so potentially explosive.

The second is to examine which elements don't work – the often maddeningly deliberate pacing, which reveals a basic lack of stagecraft on Ridley's part, a key misstep in terms of overall presentation and a fairly crucial piece of miscasting – and try to find explanations for them.

While it's true that Dave Barton's staging reveals Ridley's often inelegant way of moving characters into and out of the play's unbroken, real-time action, "Mercury Fur" is, when all is said and done, a visceral experience, an often intense mixture of psychological thriller, sci-fi and character study.

We're in a dark, savage, dog-eat-dog world in some vaguely defined near-future time. To disrupt the social order and keep the populace under control, the government uses butterflies whose wings are laced with various drugs.

The play opens as two teen brothers, Elliott (Scott Barber) and Darren (Justin Radford), prepare a filthy, deserted apartment for a makeshift party being thrown by Spinx, the 22-year-old head of their loose-knit clan.

At 19, the capable Elliott must fend for himself and Darren, just three years younger yet addicted to butterflies and in a constant mental fog. In muted fashion, the true nature of the party is revealed only bit by bit, involving the realization of sick, violent fantasies and a 10-year-old boy known only as the "Party Piece."

In the world Ridley paints, a generation of young adults is incapable of discerning reality and documented history from pop-culture fiction. Their language is graphic and unforgiving, and each has only feverish, lurid memories of the past.

As vital to this staging are Jessica Woodard's set of torn furniture, boarded-up doors, spray-painted walls and debris-strewn floor and Lindsey Suits' lighting design, which moves gradually from late-afternoon sunlight to near-total darkness, neatly pulling off Ridley's conceit of staging the action in real time.

Yet Suits' scheme has a major flaw: Each time a character launches into a poignant monologue, the lights lower down to a single spot, a device that reeks of artifice and pulls us out of the play.

The play's basic outlines are pure melodrama, yet Barton creates a natural ebb and flow to the script's tension. All flaws in dramaturgy aside, "Mercury Fur" is a minor masterpiece that, like "Lord of the Flies," reveals naked truths about human nature when the veneer of civilization has been shredded. Even as Barton's staging reveals Ridley's despair over the direction of Western society, the final orgy of violence forces the characters to dig down deep not for fortitude, but for empathy.

Like George and Lennie from "Of Mice and Men," Elliott makes no secret of how burdened he feels as the near-helpless Darren's caretaker – yet Barton depicts the true bonding, affection and devotion of this pair, who really only have each other.

Barber's Elliott is remarkably complex – obviously well-read and sensitive but with a forceful, self-protective exterior. At 19, he's already a bitter old man, irritated and impatient of Darren and Lola – yet, like a good dad, he's also fiercely protective of them.

Radford responds with a soft, anxiety-ridden, spaced-out and surprisingly hopeful Darren. Peter Hagen does a nifty if effeminate turn as Darren's new pal, the ratty, inquisitive young urchin Naz, who is so successful at taking orders he becomes indispensable to Elliott, Darren and even the hardened "Papa" Spinx.

Ryan Harris is a commanding, suavely bullying Spinx. Alexander Price is soft and delicate as Elliott's transvestite girlfriend Lola, the makeup artist who prepares each party's victim. As the sheltered, 40-ish Duchess, left blinded and prone to seizures after a blow to the head, Elsa Martinez-Phillips is elegant and fragile.

The shallow, sadistic psychotic guest of honor should scare the daylights out of us, yet Robert Dean Nunez is simply hyper and demanding in the role, and insufficiently terrifying. As the intended victim, young Ethan Tryon-Vincent doesn't so much act as wander in circles, scarcely generating the effect of a boy who's been drugged up and primed for slaughter. It's a near-thankless role for anyone of so tender an age, and perhaps one of the biggest hurdles of any staging of "Mercury Fur."

The U.S. premiere of British playwright Philip Ridley's 2005 shocker unfolds like a muted nightmare set in a vaguely defined near-future
time when lawlessness is the order of the day. Two teen brothers, Elliot (Scott Barber) and Darren (Justin Radford), are preparing a
filthy, dark, deserted apartment for a party. In menacing, Pinteresque fashion, the event's nature is revealed only bit by bit.
That it doesn't hit us all at once doesn't lessen the despair of Ridley's vision, despite an ambivalent ending that holds out the
possibility of hope. Dave Barton's deliberately paced staging reveals not only the script's visceral nightmarishness but also its
inelegant way of moving characters into and out of the action leading up to what should be—but isn't quite—a tense, shocking
climax.

Given the play's melodramatic outlines, Barber's forceful Elliot is remarkably complex, nicely complemented by Radford's hopelessly
anxious, drug-addled space cadet Darren. Peter Hagen imbues Darren's new best pal, Naz, with an inquisitive nature, eagerness to please,
and shades of femininity. Alexander Price is delicate as Elliott's "girlfriend" Ryan Harris is commanding as Papa Spinx, the
22-year-old head of this loose-knit clan; Elsa Martinez-Philips is fragile as the sheltered, 40-ish "Duchess" and Robert Dean Nunez is
hyper, whiny, and not nearly spooky enough as the guest of honor.

Barton and lighting designer Lindsey Suits opt to lower the lights each time a character launches into a monologue, an artifice that
disrupts the effect of gradual dimming from late afternoon sunlight to near-total darkness, thereby shattering Ridley's conceit of
staging the entire play in real time. Still, this tale emerges as a sort of latter-day Lord of the Flies as Barton's mostly adult cast
convincingly portrays teens and young adults who reflect the violence of the world around them while struggling to retain a shred
of their humanity.

Presented by Rude Guerrilla Theater Company at the Empire Theater, 202 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2:30 p.m.
(Also 8 p.m. Mar. 22.) Mar. 2-24. (714) 547-4688. www.rudeguerrilla.org.

Mercury Fur is a long, painfully rewarding vision
By Joel Beers

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - 3:00 pm

A child is tortured--mutilated--in the climactic moments of Mercury Fur, the Philip Ridley play being presented in its American debut by
the Rude Guerilla Theater Company. In fact, lots of people endure slow, very painful deaths.

Does that kind of cruelty bother you? It probably should. Does it surprise you? It probably shouldn't. Rather suddenly, torture has
become a well-known fact of our lives--and a staple of our entertainment. The change seems to have occurred since Sept. 11,
2001. According to a February article in the New Yorker, fewer than four acts of torture were portrayed every year on prime-time
television before 9-11. Since then, the average is more than 100.

Rude Guerrilla's production doesn't soft-pedal Ridley's white-knuckle vision of an America plunged into political and moral
anarchy. But with everyone from 24's Jack Bauer to our soldiers making their victims scream, what makes the twisting and shouting in
Mercury Fur so powerfully horrific?

For starters, these victims suffer for only one crime--being alive, and being ensnared in the sick fantasy of a civil servant who yearns
to pay for the privilege of murder. Even worse, these victims--the characters and the actors who portray them--aren't even old enough
to vote; one is 16, another is a third grader. Most actors four times their ages haven't been asked to travel to darker places than
these two kids.

Mercury Fur is a dark and sordid work, albeit one punctuated by great dialogue and moments of unbelievably audacious humor. Rude
Guerrilla's unflinching production is impressive, even for a company that has never shied away from the uncomfortable and unseemly. Is
all the verbal and physical brutality necessary?

Probably not. Ridley could have handled the rape, torture and murder more artfully, craftily or subtly. Then again, those words aren't
commonly associated with violence, and Ridley's play seems designed in part to strip from barbaric acts the hypocritical veneer of
civilized discourse. Mission accomplished, by Ridley and director Dave Barton's uncompromisingly honest production.

But is it worth seeing? Well, maybe not if you hate sitting in a theater for more than two hours straight. An intermission would be
nice. Breaking Mercury Fur into two parts might also help correct this show's biggest flaw: a lack of rising tension. That isn't
helped by Barton's most conspicuous stylistic choice: stopping the flow of action by focusing lights on characters delivering revealing
monologues. The effect makes these graphically lurid stories feel more like Storytime With Uncle Remus featuring Charlie Manson. The
monologues serve as intrusions rather than steps toward a harrowing climax.

Still, this is a solid effort, with excellent physical combat and lively performances by a stellar ensemble cast. Justin Radford's
sublimely understated Darren deserves special mention. Also, Robert Dean Nunez's Party Guy nearly steals the show with his late entrance
as a corrupt civil servant who somehow manages, in the blink of a rabbit's eye, to turn frat-boy enthusiasm into convincingly creepy
Hannibal Lecter perversion.

Tough, honest, visceral, and grueling on both the soul and buttocks, this is a play and a production not for the faint of heart. There is
only one company in this county with the balls to stage this play; and there's only one company with the heart to get it as right as
Rude Guerilla does.

MERCURY FUR, AT RUDE GUERILLA THEATER, 200 N. BROADWAY, SANTA ANA,
(714)547-4688; WWW.RUDEGUERILLA.ORG. FRI.-SAT., 8 P.M.; SUN., 2
P.M.; ALSO THURS., MARCH 15, 8 P.M. THROUGH MARCH 24. $10-$18.