Brando

Imagine that someone has written a play entitled Brando, exploring the mystique of Marlon Brando, which features a character named Brando, who is actually supposed to be Marlon Brando, and that this character is rendered as a fat joke, nothing more.

You'd have an idea just how cluelessly awful this play is.

Audax appears to be the one-man vision of playwright/producer David Roberts, and you have to wonder, watching this, whether he has any idea what a play is, let alone whether he can write one. Symbols galore adorn this work: a newlyweds' telephone that only receives calls from Brando, a man who makes miniature artwork on grains of rice, a deceased father who walks through the action, Fool-for-Love style. What do any of these features have to do with the story? Oh, I'm sorry; is there supposed to be a story?

I don't generally review plays I had a hard time not walking out on, but praise is due at least two truly excellent professionals here: Michael Carnahan's set, of an apartment overloaded with African artifacts, is beautiful and immediately sets the scene. The program says he works with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and this set was up to their highest standards.  And Kate Roe, as the beleaguered bride of a man obsessed with making his honeymoon memories as special as his parents', is a great discovery: she tells more in quick, strained glances than the playwright ever does. Ms. Roe not only has a promising future onstage, she clearly has a future in film as well -- she acts with her eyes, her expressions, her posture.

Pete Barker, as the elegant ghost dad, brings dignity and style to his performance, and John Jenis offers professionalism and authority to a thankless role as Ron, the rice artist who doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything the play pretends to be about.

Jason Marr, on the other hand, as the central character of Butler, the bullying groom whose concept of marriage has nothing to do with his own wife, gives a one-note performance, with a voice like David Morse at highest volume and exasperation, but with none of that excellent actor's range or subtlety. His physical acting is even worse: during a scene in which the newlyweds are talking about their inability to relate to each other sexually, Mr. Marr wraps himself around Ms. Roe so easily and lustily that it undercuts every word he speaks.

A person in the theater close to the cast said this move was a recent innovation. (I bring up the subject because it's as screamingly wrong as if Hamlet were to make out with Ophelia before telling her, "Get thee to a nunnery.")

Scott Duffy, as the man who gives the newlyweds the Brando phone, is so stiff he'd make an oak envious - he seems to have made one choice, to use a voice like a child pretending to be a grownup, and stuck with it for every one of his scenes. Pity, too, because his is the only character with lines that are actually funny.

But the biggest disappointment of all, besides the writing, must be Dante Giammarco's Brando, who seems not to know who Mr. Brando is, or what makes him distinctive. No playfulness, no lisp, no mumbling, no anything that might ever remind anyone of the damn peculiar and wonderful Mr. Brando himself. Just lots of volume, occasionally with a broad southern accent (the actor's own, I believe), mostly not. Just a bafflingly clueless portrayal of a terribly written part. Equal if not greater blame must go to the director and  playwright/producer for allowing this performance onstage.

I'd not only recommend staying away from Brando; I'd recommend staying away from anything at all from AUDAX, which appears to be adrift in good intentions, plenty of money, celebrity friends, and zero aptitude for theater itself. But if you ever see Kate Roe listed in a cast, or Michael Carnahan as a set designer, be assured you'll encounter the highest professionalism and delightful creativity.