The Cryptogram was Artistic Director Zinoman's non-sugar plum entry into the Christmas season. I'm not certain which I found more depressing - the flu that kept me from attending opening night, or this tragic story of family dysfunction.
Mamet's spare, incisive style, corrosive when applied to the lives of Hollywood Hucksters (Speed-the-Plow) and academia (Oleanna), is devastating when applied to family dynamics. Michael Leon Drezner plays John, the ten-year-old victim of his mother's wrath at his father's adultery. Drezner, a sixth-grade student at Sidwell Friends School (the academy attended by Chelsea Clinton) is a natural in his professional debut. His selfish, embittered mother, Donny (Anna Bergman) unravels in front of our eyes, abetted in her deterioration by the defection of Del (Scott Sparks). A family friend without much life of his own, Del provided his own bed to Robert for extramarital hanky-panky. (Like the legendary Godot, the absent Robert, who fails to show for a camping trip scheduled with his son, is as palpable a character as the actors on stage.)
The set design by Helen Q. Huang is spare. The generic living room furniture gives no clue that the action takes place in 1959, as designated in the playbill. The large, well-worn sofa, glass coffee table and black office-style swivel chair lose their minimal hominess when buried in brown paper in the last scene, preparatory for the movers. The ominous stairwell, augmented with shadows out of a horror movie, hints at the secrets hidden in the attic, to which the characters constantly allude. Pictures and knives are retrieved from that haunted citadel. It is no wonder John fears to ascend the stairs to his room; living in this house would make anyone an insomniac.
When the nurturing Del has been banished, and his mother denies John the comfort of the red stadium blanket packed in the attic, he is truly lost. He stands alone, a target, awaiting the long years until manhood will release him from his hell. (This play has been described as autobiographical. If so, we can be comforted that John (alias David Mamet) grew up, strengthened by his ordeal and transformed it into one of the most produced plays this season, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.)
