Drinking In America

You always expect something outsized and outrageous when Carver Johns is onstage -- with a slight edge of pure craziness. So it was almost inevitable that Johns and his innerVoices Theater Company would gravitate toward the solo pieces of Eric Bogosian. They're opening their first full season at the Central Avenue Playhouse with Bogosian's breakthrough Drinking in America, and they're proving that the monologues are as wildly pertinent today as they were back in 1985 when the performance artist began writing them.

Predictably, Johns is most at home with the material when it's amped-up and energized to the max. His rendition of "Our Gang," the longest of the monologues, rises from peak to peak as he narrates a freewheeling drunken spree that includes a car wreck, two car thefts, a terrorizing break-in, and a cornucopia of mind-altering chemicals. But ever the gentleman, our narrator has not taken advantage of his girlfriend when she finally passes out. Instead, he has dutifully dropped her off at home -- and left her wedged between the front and screen doors.

The outsizing goes beyond interpretation. There were a dozen pieces in the original Drinking, but Johns and newlywed bride Serena Ruden Johns, who directs, have biggie-sized the show to 16 monologues, including assorted DJ rants and one screaming vocal. So the innerVoices version extends to an ample hour and 54 minutes without an intermission. Aside from that "Have a Drink on Me" vocal, you'll find it difficult to distinguish between the original material and the add-ons. Nor will you find the original titles to the pieces in your program. Not a big deal when you're riveted to Johns' gonzo antics. There's a welcome respite from the steady barrage of high-energy pieces -- for Johns, I'd imagine, as much as for us -- when he sits down and delivers an almost shockingly sedate "No Problems." Speaking calmly and slowly, this is as buttoned-down as you're likely to see Johns onstage, the dorky black eyeglass frames nicely sealing his Clark Kent persona.

This perfectly content, perfectly hollow suburbanite with the very attractive wife -- and the very precocious daughter whom "we like very much" -- is a pointed exception to the drunken, drugged American males who parade before us. But not the only one. There's also the preacher of "The Law," who endorses the gun-toting vigilantism of Bernard Goetz, urging the "discipline of the bullet" for Harvey Milk and Larry Flynt -- and the discipline of the Molotov cocktail for abortion clinics. The xenophobic war our preacher is waging against Satan is chillingly up-to-date.

Last Thursday's opening night crowd was certainly attuned to the Bogosian outlook and encouraged Johns with their enthusiasm. But the production was on shaky footing at the outset when Johns delivered "Journal," a 1971 memento written by a blissfully stoned college kid who was an obvious poster child for Flower Power. Johns and spouse grasped the distance between the reader and the writer -- but the mocking, laughing tone of the reader didn't play as the right kind of distance from his former self.

Then Johns started to hit his stride -- or should we say his stagger? -- as the delusional wino of "American Dream." While brandishing a bottle of humble T-bird in his right hand, this street bum brags about his limo, fully stocked with choice whiskey and equipped with TV and swimming pool. Johns' fondness for this characterization becomes obvious later when he reprises it for the final "Fried-Egg Deal" monologue. Although the script clearly indicates that this character is a frank, self-pitying panhandler, the linkage works beautifully. In fact, everything between these two wino monologues might strike you as the reverie he has after passing out at the end of "American Dream."

Keeping with Bogosian's specifications, the set is spare -- the uncredited lighting is mostly dingy, aptly spotlighting this sleazoid cavalcade. We abruptly shift to a single shaft of light for "Godhead," where we meet a slow-talking heroin addict who describes, in a husky guttural voice, his disgust with the world and his leave-me-alone escape to his needle. This is particularly disturbing coming on the heels of the hollow contentment of "No Problems."