stage
I’m all in favor of complex phrases that, as Wallace Stevens said, "resist the intelligence almost successfully." But I just can’t wrap my mind around the title Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart. Because a heart, unlike a lung, has no twin, I can’t see how it can’t be accompanied. (Sure, I know that "heart" stands for lost or lonely human being, but still…) By entering the heart will the bullet give it accompaniment? Is death what the incomplete heart needs to be complete? Ah hell, I don’t know.
 Cross your heart and hope to die: Blues run the game for Dugan McBane (Allen VanHouzen) in Cakes’n’ale Theatre Company’s Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart. |
Fortunately, the title is the only real weakness in Robert Wray’s play, Cakes’n’ale Theatre Company‘s premiere production, which had a three-day run last weekend at a fourth-floor space at Live Arts, and will have two performances at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative early next week. Wray, a veteran writer and actor who has paid his dues in New York City and Los Angeles, employs a device that not only helps give his play an uncommon flavor, but also serves to express what introducing a new theater company to a city is all about: extending the bounds of artistic freedom.
Bullet takes place in the country of the mind—specifically, the mind of blues singer and guitarist Dugan McBane (the name blues lover Van Morrison would adopt if he wanted to announce his Irishness to the world), played by Allen VanHouzen. McBane, haunted by the ghost of his muse and ex-girlfriend, Anya Magnifico (Claire McGurk), is locked in what looks like an ordinary urban apartment building living room—in fact, it’s the prison, so to speak, of his botched past, complete with a guard named Milo (Don Gaylord) who waves a gun in McBane’s face every time he thinks about trying to let go of his thoughts.
Just as the mind contains innumerable possibilities, the play is like a blues song that hints at the standard lyrics while also flourishing beat poet rhythms, David Mamet-speak, Samuel Beckett-like existential ghoulishness and just about anything else Wray can think of. The task he’s presented himself is to keep all this indulgence from spilling over into self-indulgence, and for the most part he succeeds (director Sean Chandler chimes in by keeping the tone and atmosphere tight and consistent). And even when the play threatens to disappear in the heavy mist of its influences, it maintains a hearty individuality that’s an entirely welcome contrast to much of what’s available for Charlottesville theatergoers.
It should also be noted that the play, with its lengthy monologues that aim to exhume with words a buried past, and its emotional intensity, presents a huge challenge for actors, and the always-surprising pool of local acting talent has delivered. While Gaylord in the supporting role is solid, VanHouzen and McGurk do all the heavy lifting with unwavering confidence and professional panache.
Cakes’n’ale Theatre Company present Bullet for Unaccompanied Heart again at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative on November 26-27 at 8pm. Tickets are available in exchange for donations at the door.