Nicholas Kazan, inspired by Kenneth Tynan's profile of actress Louise Brooks, sought out the silent film for which she was famous -- G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box. That in turn led him to Pabst's original source: two controversial plays by German playwright
Franz Wedekind. Known as the "Lulu plays," 1895's Der Erdgeist (literally,
earth-spirit) and 1904's Die Buchse der Pandora were banned in Europe for many years, thanks to the frank, daring way they treated sex and eroticism. Later, Alban Berg turned the plays into an opera, Lulu.
In Kazan's hands, Lulu (the spirited and compelling Annika Marks) is an artist's model who lives, thinks and worships sex. She is a wild creature, a force of nature, coupling with anyone and everyone she fancies: male or female, black or white. What she really gets off on is using her sexual power to tease, taunt and ultimately destroy all those pathetic human beings who fall for her.
Kazan, like Wedekind before him, holds nothing back: his play contains full-frontal nudity, bawdy jokes, crude dialogue, outrageous sitations. In Act One, these qualities are explored in comedic fashion, but just when you are beginning to think that he has decided to settle for a saucy sex farce, Kazan shifts gears in Act Two and turns his story in a darker, grimmer direction. Lulu, in prison, is obliged to pay a price for her selfish, destructive ways. It would be wrong to say that Kazan's theme is moral retribution; Lulu doesn't change, merely learns something surprising about herself -- that sex can heal as well as destroy.
Mlle. God has a large talented cast. Robert Trebor plays a stressed-out artist named Melville; William Duffy is Charles, an art-buyer; Kareem Fergusen is The Prince, a black stud ("the smallest point guard in the NBA"); Gary Patent is an innocent young man, Trib; Laura Beckner is Harriet, Trib's fiancee; Will Harris is Kip, Lulu's hulking, beer-swilling brother; Keith Arthur Bolden is Lewis, a prison guard; Jacqueline Wright is Eleanor, a lesbian lawyer; and John Nielsen is The Governor. All of these disparate -- and sometimes nutty -- characters come under Lulu's spell at one time or another. They are overwhelmed by the force and potency of her sexual power -- though The Governor manages to shock Lulu by unleashing an even more dangerous and destructive force: the power of the state.
Mlle. God is a twisted but provocative play by a gutsy writer who has been well-served by his cast, director and production team. The brand-new, 99-seat Atwater Village Theater, situated in a former warehouse adjoining the Amtrak tracks in Glendale, has been christened in promising fashion. The AVT will be shared by the Circle X theater company.
