`The Cryptogram' dramatizes a family's fall

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by Ann Abel

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The theater world knows David Mamet for his chilling postmodern morality plays. His characters are studies in alienation, rage and suffering.

In The Cryptogram , Mamet's latest exposé of disturbed human psyches, his subject is not the cutthroat real-estate salesmen of Glengarry Glen Ross or the pompous professor of Oleanna , but a normal American family, circa 1959. However, he skillfully applies the same bleakness to his character studies.

The Cryptogram first appeared at Boston's American Repertory Theatre in February 1995 and transferred to off-Broadway last spring, where it was met with critical acclaim and given a prestigious Obie Award for Drama. The Alley's rendition, directed by Scott Zigler, is tremendously engaging and provocative.

Centered around a high-strung woman, her insomniac child and her hard-drinking, lying gay best friend, Mamet's play relentlessly portrays a 10-year-old boy's forced initiation into adulthood. His parents' disintegrating marriage and his mother's friend's betrayal end his childhood all too soon.

The play begins as John (Jimmy Fanelli), his mother Donny (Kathleen O'Grady) and her friend Del (Michael de Vries) await the return of John's father, who has promised to take them on a camping trip.

As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that Daddy isn't coming home anytime soon. Donny reads a letter that confirms he has left her. Del reveals that her husband is having an affair. Once those moral threads are pulled, the family's whole psychological fabric of kindness and sanity is quickly torn into shreds. The characters go berserk, succumb to incredible tension and vent their furies on one another.

The Cryptogram 's central image is a German paratrooper's knife which the characters pass to one another. Even that, however, turns out to be something less pure than it seems. Among other things, it symbolizes the emptiness and destructiveness of machismo. In the haunting final scene, the boy holds the knife -- and all of its ominous implications.

Male-bashing feminists could read the play as a symbol of the infidel male sex. Misogynists could take it as criticism of the neu- rotic women who drive them to cheat.

But The Cryptogram studies much more than that. It explores the entire human condition in an age where people have lost the ability to communicate. Even more disturbing, it reveals what happens when those people pass their hatred onto their children.

Jimmy Fanelli is absolutely phenomenal as John. The real-life sixth grader masters a range of emotions greater than many adult actors command. Without sinking into melodramatic pathos, he inspires deep sympathy.

The adult actors also deserve praise. Kathleen O'Grady keeps immense emotion under control until, like the symbolic teakettle, she erupts in a loud and steamy outburst. Her tremendous fury is touching and believable. Michael de Vries manages to be both slimy and pathetic -- not an easy combination -- throughout.

Mamet's wonderful dialogue helps. He's a master of fast, furious language that is at the same time lyrical and musical. Lines collide, overlap and complete one another in a magnificent symphony of suffering.

Utilizing the round stage in the Neuhaus Arena Theatre makes the play even more compelling. The play wouldn't have worked as well on a larger stage; the audience is fully drawn into the characters' warped drama on the smaller set.

The Cryptogram, which runs through April 7, is hardly a musical comedy. Audiences don't exactly go home feeling warm and fuzzy about human interaction.

Instead, the play is a grueling, stupefying journey into some very messed-up minds. It is intense and well worth seeing.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the March 29, 1996 issue.

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