[ back ]
'Boom' is world-changing comedy
(by Herb Hammer - December 17, 2008)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
'Boom' is world-changing comedy
We're in Jules' basement lab. There's a bed surrounded by several cabinets. Jules is a marine biologist who has placed an ad in an online hookup promising "sex to change the course of the world."
He gets one answer. It's from a young journalism student who leaps on top of Jules, rips his clothes off, suddenly to find out that Jules is gay. This "change the world" business he really means.
Fresh from its Off-Broadway run, "Boom" captures the imagination and spins it sideways. The Cleveland Public Theatre at West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue stays true to playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb (that's his real name) and has pulled out all the stops to make it funny, intriguing and a little nuts.
You wonder early on if the world is truly to be hit by an enormous comet or if this is a game being played out by the gay biologist and his new loopy friend.
By studying the strange actions of four little goldfish in his globe of a fish tank, he has prepared himself for the approaching Armageddon that will happen in a matter of minutes. He locks the door.
Well, sure enough, above ground, the Earth is destroyed, and the screwy pair are stuck.
Mr. Nachtrieb is presenting us with a comic twilight zone. From here on, you expect the unexpected and are never disappointed.
Off to one side is Barbara, name tag and all, pounding on drums, yanking on chains and pulling levers. And lo and behold, she controls the actions with freeze frames and death that never quite come about.
When Jules is digging around the basement, Jo searches the cabinets, only to find them stocked with diapers and tampons.
As out of whack "Boom" continues to become, you find yourself laughing at the entire setup. After all is said and done, you find that this is really happening, the world has come to an end, or has it? Our friend Barbara now appears to be a narrator at a living museum. When she isn't pounding on drums, she comes out on stage to tell us some things that have gone on in her life.
Kelly Elliott plays Barbara, the obnoxious drum pounder carrying much of the play.
The striking Laurel Johnson, as Jo, is the young journalist. Her amazing talent is only exceeded by the can't-take-your-eyes-off-of-her phenomenal good looks.
Doug Snyder is a believable mental case who jerks his audience from side to side. He is Jules, named after Jules Verne, who's glad his parents didn't name him Verne.
Dark comedy persists throughout as Jo continues to fall in a dead faint, while Jules leads us through this merry mess.
"Boom," directed by Beth Wood, is an hour-and-a-half one-act that keeps you curious and laughing all the way through.
[ back ]
