Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Potomac Theatre Project’s hard-hitting NO END OF BLAME and GOOD raise timely questions

• By drediman
• July 22, 2016
• No Comments

You can always count on Potomac Theatre Project to provide New Yorkers with heavy-hitting, provocative summertime dramas. This 2016 season – PTP’s 30^th anniversary season – is certainly no different, which sees the company excelling in No End of Blame: Scenes of Overcoming by PTP favorite Howard Barker, playing in repertory with the timely Good by C.P. Taylor.

Playwright Howard Barker is no stranger to PTP. Over the years, the company has successfully returned to his plays time and time again. Indeed, who could forget the great Jan Maxwell in Mr. Howard’s The Castle or Scenes from an Execution? This season, PTP is currently staging his No End of Blame: Scenes of Overcoming, an episodic chronicle of a political cartoonist, Bela, and his run-ins with various parties, particularly the authority’s censorship of his work. In this Candide-like tale, we see the cartoonist hold on to his artistic ideals, despite the resulting deterioration in his mental and physical health. As Bela, Alex Draper is superb, bestowing the character with stoic determination and unforced charisma. As his sidekick, the talented and committed David Barlow is ever-endearing, even in the character’s weaker moments. No End of Blame is directed by Richard Romagnoli with a stark and raw artfulness that has become a trademark of PTP productions.

As much as I admired No End of Blame, I found C.P. Taylor’s Good the more engrossing and generally better acted of the two repertory productions. Directed by Jim Petosa in a highly choreographed, even balletic manner, Good tells the timely story of Hitler’s terrifying, albeit unlikely, rise to power (does this remind you of anyone in particular in today’s politics?) through the eyes of John Halder, a good and solid man on many counts. The play’s elegant central conceit is the music in our heads – before i-gadgets, of course. I won’t spoil it for you, but the way in which Mr. Taylor turns this device on its head at the play’s conclusion is nothing short of chilling. The play vehemently argues that it’s simply not enough to be “good” in the face of such aggressive evil.  As John Halder, Michael Kaye is astonishing, maintaining an immense likability throughout – even when the character commences the downward spiral of deluding himself of the innocuousness of his escalating and increasingly central role in the Final Solution. The rest of the cast is excellent and fully attuned to Mr. Petosa’s vision of the play.

RECOMMENDED (both productions)

NO END OF BLAME: SCENES OF OVERCOMING
Off-Broadway, Play (running in repertory with Good)
Potomac Theatre Project at Atlantic Stage 2
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through August 7

 GOOD
Off-Broadway, Play (running in repertory with No End of Blame)
Potomac Theatre Project at Atlantic Stage 2
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through August 6