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The Rice Thresher
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Amy Krivohlavek Thresher staff It's slick, savvy and smart. And that's just his costume. Marlowe's Last Death and Tale, a new play written and performed by Lovett College sophomore Tariq Tapa, flows and bubbles with the consistency of a slick martini running down your throat. It's cool, it's unusual and it takes you into a different dimension. Creating the focus and forward motion essential for a successful and captivating one-man show is a daunting task, but Tapa and director Brad Demarest, a Lovett senior, have produced a show that keeps the audience's attention and keeps itself moving. The play is made up of three mini-acts, employing a jazz ensemble as a segue device to play through the interludes. It is both a mystery and a statement on the writer's craft. Tapa tells us at the beginning that the play is "a detective story - presided over by a ghost." In the next breath, however, he admits an addiction to a "gift" for lying. Because lying to strangers obviously gives him no pause, an extra level of complexity is added to the rest of the show. Does he tell us the truth? Or is the story of his encounter with the ghostly Christopher "Kit" Marlowe simply another one of his storied lies? Tapa's character is a frustrated writer in New York. He tells us about the boredom that leads him to lie and his loneliness, which "a writer needs." He claims, "I loved the stories but they never loved me back." He discusses the experience of meeting a woman in a movie theater and what their relationship helps him to discover, but remains cynical about love and the possibility of any close relationship, asserting, again, that "a writer needs loneliness." He finally moves into his encounter with the infamous Marlowe on a subway train that ends up in the Bronx. Tapa's character is convinced that he has met a ghost, and his conversations with Marlowe on the subway and in an all-night diner bring him to a sort of anti-epiphany that reorganizes his order of thinking. Does a writer need loneliness, or does "loneliness need a writer?" From the moment Tapa steps onto the stage, he is cool, collected, poised and focused. And, amazingly enough, he is able to maintain this focus and intensity throughout the show. Despite several minor lighting mishaps at the review performance, Tapa kept the audience's attention - his style is conversational and intimate. He engages his listeners through well-timed gestures, descriptive facial expressions and voice tone. I found myself nodding in agreement several times during the show, almost as if I was listening to someone speak to me one-on-one. His acting style seems akin to that of old-time movie legends such as Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart - filled with a rambling familiarity at some moments but also almost unconsciously humorous and comic at others. Most importantly, Tapa does not overact, an easily achieved but destructive temptation in a one-man show. His stage presence is subtle and calculated. The strength of Tapa's acting is accentuated by the jazz strains that enable the production to flow along. The band, comprised of graduate student Dylon Robbins on tenor saxophone, Brown College junior Dave Herman on bass and Baker College junior Daniel Mee on drums, is an excellent addition to the show. The music creates an avant-garde atmosphere in Lyle's, usually home to the Undergrounds, a setting that integrates well into Tapa's play. The transition from the jazz ensemble, intimately playing by candlelight, to Tapa, clad in a long, lean black suit, gives the production a classy look. The show's look is also enhanced by the lighting, by Lovett junior Hari Patel and Lovett senior Shervin Shirvani. The colors of the set - black, white and gray, punctuated by red - set off Tapa's black suit well. The colors are classic, reminiscent of such stylized movies as L.A. Confidential and American Psycho. My only complaint is that the set is, at times, a bit cumbersome to Tapa's movement. An oddly placed chair tripped him up once or twice, and I would have liked to see him with more range of movement. I also wanted to hear more from the jazz ensemble. As for the play itself, the monologue advances promisingly, but Tapa's experience with Marlowe could be developed a bit more. I'm not sure that I understood this play entirely, but I definitely enjoyed the atmosphere it created and the overall experience of watching it. When I asked a fellow audience member whether he liked the production, he called it "one of those things that you have to think about for a while before you decide if you like it or not." I definitely agree. Marlowe's Last Death and Tale will give you food for thought, but the experience of the play itself is not to be missed. Pass me a martini.
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