THEATER REVIEW: AWAKE

Erica (Tacey Adams) and Paul (Joseph Culp) in Awake in a World That Encourages Sleep.

We are only sleeping

By Ed Rampell

Playwright and co-star Raymond J. Barry’s Awake in a World That Encourages Sleep is being advertised with the tagline: “Occupy this play!” However, although this one act, three-actor production takes place entirely in a park (not Zuccotti or the lawn at L.A.’s City Hall), Awake in a World That Encourages Sleep has little to do with Occupy Wall Street’s occupations per se, although it does reflect that mass movement’s anti-corporate sensibility.

Combining the Theatre of the Absurd with agitprop, Barry’s drama is a cross between Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty. (Odets, of course, also penned Awake and Sing! another proletarian theater classic that was originally presented by the fabled Group Theatre in1935 and was revived on Broadway in 2006 with Ben Gazzara.) Barry plays Edward, an economist similar to John Perkins, the whistlebowing consultant who wrote the expose Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, exposing imperialist intervention in the Third World through financial and covert means.

Edward was strolling in the park one day, in the merry, merry month of whenever, when he is taken by surprise by stumbling upon Erica (Tacey Adams). She has apparently called in “well” and is taking the day off from work so she can read a volume of Leo Tolstoy’s short stories on a bench in a public park on a sunny afternoon. Or is their rendezvous actually part of a premeditated scheme, rather than merely a random act? As it turns out Erica also happens to be the wife of Paul (Joseph Culp), a former business associate of Edward’s. Edward has woken up and abandoned the corporate/government cabal referred to as the “Group” (I trust this is not a reference to the Group Theatre). He woos Erica and clashes with Paul over corporate ethics (now there’s an oxymoron for you!) and Erica’s affections.

Barry’s dialogue is crisply written and expertly delivered, often rapid fire, by the trio of thesps with an absurdist tilt and lilt. As the naysayer, Edward in particular slings zingers about the business world he has become disaffected with and alienated from. He’s now an insomniac in a world of somnambulists. The nature of what may be Paul’s hidden relationship with his former colleague threatens to unhinge Paul, who is still very much a corporate shill and tool with a revealing back story. Meanwhile, the action in the park is intermittently interrupted by offstage explosions, due to an ongoing war not too far away as part of the realpolitik of the ruling powers-that-be.

Those bombs bursting in air may be heard by the actors onstage, but not by members of the audience, and I couldn’t help but think that it would have been more effective if the explosions had indeed been rendered audible for the audience. But this is a mere quibble, as the drama is excellently acted throughout and presents a cogent, if Kafka-esque, critique of corporate rule. All three actors are clad in business attire, and the bare stage is painted white, including a tree  flanked by ivory benches.

Awake in a World That Encourages Sleep runs through Feb. 26 at the Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice, CA 90291. For ticket info see: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/210533.