LOS
ANGELES TIMES
February
6, 2004
THEATER
BEAT
Director
Matthew Wilder is some kind of genius, the kind who grabs you by the lapels and
demands to be reckoned with, every moment of every scene.
Wilder
hovers self-consciously between epiphany and fiasco, inspiration and
indulgence. Call it sheer theatrical brilliance or mere pretentious twaddle,
but you always know you're seeing something; indifference is not an option.
With
writer Gil Kofman's gleefully offensive new medical lampoon,
"Pharmacopeia: The Most Lamentable Tragedy of William Payne, M.D.,"
Wilder has less a play than a playground for outsized staging conceits: Ironic
musical numbers straight out of Dennis Potter's worst hospital nightmares;
found footage and slides projected across translucent scrims (set design by
Efren Delgadillo Jr., video design by Jamie Mcelhinney); expressionistic
lighting design by Brian J. Lilienthal; sound design, by Ezra Walker and David
Baker, that samples everything from composer Bernard Herrmann to Homeland
Security Secretary Tom Ridge; an aggressive, unsubtle performance style.
Most
of his game cast is up to the challenge, particularly Joseph Hulser as Dr.
William Payne, the show's loopy, lecherous antihero, who leads a quixotic
crusade against cancer from storefront digs in Vegas.
Jessica
Ires Morris provides bracing reality checks in two roles.
And
as an entirely superfluous but indispensably hilarious mullet- headed yahoo,
Declan Galvin is a find. "Pharmacopeia" achieves something close to
dialectical clarity; tellingly, Wilder shows refreshing directorial restraint
here.
-- Rob Kendt
"Pharmacopeia: The Most Lamentable Tragedy of William
Payne, M.D." Shock & Awe Productions at the Evidence Room, 2200
Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends
Feb. 22. $20. (310) 869-0977. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.