On an unnamed Greek island, Liza (Alina Phelan) arrives uninvited at the farmhouse (Broadway-quality set by Sibyl Wickersheimer) of her old boyfriend, August (Silas Weir Mitchell). August is married to Daphne, a beautiful Greek woman who is three months pregnant. The time is late summer, when the grapes are being harvested and turned into wine.
Wine, fertility, earth, primal passions, the blue Aegean looming in the Background Lascivious Something has all the ingredients of an enjoyably steamy Aegean love triangle. Unfortunately, playwright Callaghan makes a hash out of these ingredients, and an inedible one at that. Her story mangles credulity at every step of the way: her characters are ill-drawn and annoying, her forays into mysticism and mythology bewildering and ill-advised.
August has given up Berkeley and left-wing activism to grow grapes and make a life with Daphne. But Callaghan portrays him as a nut case, obsessed with rooting around in the earth, feverishly trying to get at the source of life (he walks around the entire time in the same filthy clothes, hands ripped and bleeding). August is also convinced he can turn mavrodaphne grapes, traditionally used in Greece to make sweet wine, into a classy merlot -- which he wants to call "Lascivious Something."
Even crazier is Liza, a woman who suddenly gives a bestial cry in the middle of a conversation and tries to sink her teeth into August's neck. Later, she rips her clothes off and tries to rape poor August -- with Daphne looking on impassively.
Callaghan also employs pointless narrative tricks, such as stopping the action and replaying the scene with a different result.
Her play's fourth character is known as The Boy (Alana Dietze) -- even though he dresses like a girl and is kissed by Daphne with lesbianic passion.
It's hard to know what to make of Lascivious Something Callaghan seems to be trying to update Greek mythology, with August as Dionysos, Daphne as Sappho, and the part-human, part-animal Liza portraying one of the Bacchantes. Quite possibly, though, Callaghan has some other scenario in mind. I sat through her play for two hours -- and the longer I sat there, the less I understood--and liked -- about it.
