Extremities

[EverythingIsRENT]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 10:29pm

I just got back from seeing this play, and i'm still shaking! Wow, THIS is why I live for theatre. This show really screws with your emotions and messes with your head, and I LOVE it!! Has anyone seen it before?

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:12pm

Yes, I directed this play about 15 years ago for a theater company that performed in a church basement. That, followed by Mamet's "Sexual Perversities in Chicago," got us thrown out for good!

Powerful stuff. Our cast had to go through therapy together to decompress.

lc

[Delphine]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:15pm

What's it about?

[EverythingIsRENT]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:22pm

Delphine, it deals with a woman who is attacked and almost raped in her home, but she manages to fend him off and she ties up her attacker and tortures him in all sorts of various ways. INCREADIBLE stuff. Apparently there was a movie with Farrah Faucet based in the play, but I don't see how the movie can be as powerful.

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:28pm

It's about a woman who thwarts an attempted rape, then turns the tables on the attacker by subduing him and holding him captive in a fireplace. Her two roommates come home and start to believe his lies about her being the attacker. It's a tremendous psychological study of a woman who won't allow herself to be a victim, and the attacker who victimizes others because he was victimized himself.

According to the playwright, William Mastrosimone, he was inspired to write "Extremities" after a female friend of his was raped and ended up moving out of state because of her difficulties in dealing with her fears. He decided to write a play that might show a different outcome.

Susan Sarandon starred off-Broadway, followed by Farrah Fawcett, who repeated the role in a movie version.

lc

[EverythingIsRENT]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:33pm

Wow, I didn't know Susan Surandon did this play! That is very cool, I can see her being an amazing Marjorie!

Hmm, the guy is held in the fireplace? In the production I just saw, he was tied to an exercise machine, which I thought worked very well. Also, I don't know if this is how the show was written, but there was about 5 or 6 actors who sat behind the scrim watching the entire play, not doing anything. It was an interesting choice on the directors part, my sister and I were trying to think of a meaning behind it.

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:46pm

Interesting staging. I suspect the shadow figures were supposed to be members of a jury. They are not in the original script. The play as written includes only four characters - Raul, Marjorie, and her two roommates whose names escape me now. Mastrosimone intended the roommates to symbolize judge and jury, putting Marjorie on the "stand" as defense attorneys try to do to the victim in rape cases.

In the original, Raul's prison was the fireplace. This was very effective, because he was afraid of being locked in the dark in confined quarters. It also forced him to be cramped up, plus Marjorie hung a noose around him that she suspended from the flue lever. It made it all the more poignant that Raul could still manage to intimidate Marjorie and her roommates when he was so physically bound. His very voice, manner and presence in the room still frightened them.

lc

Posted: 11/17/04 at 11:55pm

Wow that play sounds intense. William Mastrimone is an awesome playwrite! I was in his play Bang Bang Your Dead a couple years ago and thats another deep play which still holds a sad spot in my heart.

[EverythingIsRENT]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 12:04am

Dude, Mastrosimone wrote Bang Bang You're Dead??? That show is increadible. Wow, what a playwright. Does anyone else get the feeling this guy has a lot of baggage? He writes the most intense plays i've EVER seen. Wow.

loveclassics, That's interesting about the fireplace. I guess it doesn't make a huge differece, because the rapist was still tied to the machine with the noose around his neck and he still was able to intimidate the girls. The ending really got to me, it left me hangiong and I wanted MORE! "Found a peanut, found a peanut..." ::sniff::

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 12:09am

EverythingIsRENT,

I KNOW. His breakdown actually allows Marjorie to have compassion for him! That was Mastrosimone's point in writing the play, or so he says. For Marjorie to be able to start to heal, she had to go through an entire cycle of emotions, from rage to forgiveness. Amazing.

lc

[badkarma719]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 12:10am

I think he has some interesting issues
and can convey them in writting perfectly

[Delphine]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 12:40am

Wow, this is definitely something I would be interested in seeing. Thanks everybody!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 2:03am

I remember seeing Mastrosimone's play "The Woolgatherer" years ago (I think I was high school senior and it was part of a one act play festival at the local community college) and still remember it as one of the funniest things I've ever seen anywhere (one of those times when you're gasping for air from laughing so hard and your sides hurt for days afterwards). A great two character play -- one man, one woman -- that winds up being quite touching by the end. Worth looking for to all of you young actors out there looking for good scenes and monologues.

[Taryn]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 7:12am

Try watching your brother do it in a tiny black box theatre when you're five feet away. THAT was disturbing. *shudders*

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 9:44am

Interesting about WOOLGATHERER being so funny. I saw the original production at Circle Rep with Peter Weller (Robocop) and Patricia --whatshername, on 30 SOMETHING! -- and it was equisitely acted. The girl's character is a naif, innocent, fearful, endearing--sort of a descent of Laura Wingfield. I agree with Margo -- it ought to be performed often by students. Lots of good material in it.

I saw the original EXTREMETIES with Sarandon, after she'd hurt herself and had her hand taped together. It also had Ellen Barkin. I remember the play having logic holes -- how the lead character managed to tame the guy and tie him up in the fireplace (during a blackout, of course), simply because she sprayed bug spray in his eyes. How would that stop him from using his arms and legs? It didn't make sense, since he wasn'teven knocked out.) Once you got past those distracting flaws -- and they bothered many people, not just me -- the evening had a certain power. Still, the rapist was the most compelling character, the most verbal and self-revealing. Marjorie -- AnyVictim -- wasn't nearly as detailed.

And the film was lurid, perhaps intentionally so. It managed to make the relationship between Marjorie and the rapist vaguely erotic, not exactly what was intended. Rape is a crime of violence, not a sex fantasy. Danton Stone, who played the rapist off-broadway, was creepy. The film had a good looking guy and skimpily attired Farrah, and a bit of foreplay involving the Fawcett breasts that simply played too sexually in a rape story. I think rape is very hard to portray honestly on film for that very reason -- it too often plays into fantasy. I've heard people discuss THE ACCUSED in the same way.

Updated On: 11/18/04 at 09:44 AM

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 9:53am

Yeah, it was Michael Biehn in the movie I believe.

[pab]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:06am

It was okay as a movie. The DVD got really good reviews but I think that it was much better on stage.
DVD Information

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:10am

Ah, so it was James Russo in the film. Whatever happened to him? He was very magnetic in the film -- again, perhaps too much so, in a kinky way.

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:22am

Auggie27,

When I directed it, I had Marjorie reach for a lamp cord and strangle Raul just after she sprayed him and temporarily stunned him. After a long struggle, Raul finally passed out, enabling Marjorie to tie him up. I had these scenes done in half light so that the audience could see her do this in desperation. First she wrapped the lamp's extension cord around him, securing his arms to his body. Then she tore up sheets that were stacked in a corner as painting drop cloths and tied up his knees and ankles. While he was still unconscious, she dragged him into the fireplace and chained her bicycle in front of it, securing it to pillars on the mantle. It was very believable. The actress made it seem that her fight or flight adrenalin rush gave her the ability to do this.

lc

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:36am

LC: Thank you for explaining that. Very resourceful blocking/staging. The strangling to induce blackout is particularly inspired, as is using the torn sheets. The play (like most) clearly needs just that type of thoughtful direction.

By the way -- why don't you start a thread about interesting bits of staging to handle problem scripts? I'd love to see some directorial thoughts posted here -- we get too little. I'm always startled by direction that inadequately allows an audience to suspend disbelief. (For example: I have problems with Michael Mayer's work on NIGHT MOTHER for that very reason -- he allows us to think: why doesn't the mama call the police?)

Updated On: 11/18/04 at 10:36 AM

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:39am

Why did I think it was Michael Biehn? Am I high or something?

[jmnpublications]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 10:52am

Auggie27,

Glad I was helpful. What a great idea about the directing thread. And you are so right about 'Night, Mother. The motivations and intentions of the characters can not really be staged broadly in this one, so the actors have to carry the day. I believe that directors need to get some of their inspiration from the actors and trust that if they are uncomfortable, the audience will be, too. They need to work out staging and interpretations together to be truly on the mark.

If I were directing 'Night, Mother, I would want to explore what the actors were feeling to see why the mother wouldn't call the police. In a production I saw, the mother played it that she simply couldn't believe her daughter would actually do it. The denial factor was obviously in play. There was also the element of the mother being controlling, so she just naturally figured she'd be able to talk her daughter out of it. Finally, the third element that is fairly common thinking about suicide is that the person threatening it is only seeking attention - an all to tragic misconception.

lc

[morosco]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 11:29am

Michael Biehn stalked Lauren Bacall (who played a Broadway star)in THE FAN

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 11:31am

Ah yes. Clearly I was confused.

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 11/18/04 at 11:34am

Only ever read the play. I've always wanted to see a production of it though. I didn't care too much for the movie.