Continuing in the tradition of last year’s “A Night of
Scenes,” Scott Caan’s “Minor Conversations” is a collection of eight vignettes
loosely tied together thematically. Each
scene is a pairing of characters. Some hooking up. Some breaking up. Some
trying desperately to figure out how to stay together. What struck me most
though was how desperately at least one party in the conversation wanted the
other person to listen to them.
Identity has always played greatly in Caan’s work,
especially as it relates to characters’ attempts to communicate. “Minor
Conversations” adds one more layer to this: listening. Listening might seem
implicit in any discussion of communication, but as all eight of these scenes
points out, listening is harder than it looks.
People tell you things you don’t want to hear. They tell you
things that will blow your life apart. They tell you things you don’t
understand but you desperately try to pretend that you do. They tell you stupid
things and goofball things and things that reveal what an asshole they are.
Listening requires constant navigation. Through bias and
perception and bullshit and lies.
Casey tells June that for men, the act of sex barely even
requires a woman. It’s really just masturbation and her vagina happens to be
there. Women are in essence a living, breathing mindless doll. They don’t
participate. In fact, their participation, their pleasure, isn’t even a
consideration.
Tony tries to convince Jack (as Tony rocks his daughter back
and forth in her baby stroller no less) that “settling” down is not for him.
Not yet. That might come (as unhappily as Tony himself accepted that “fact” and
joined the marriage/baby train) but first, Jack owes it to himself to let that
penis loose and treat himself to the best time of his sexual life, in essence,
to all the fuckable babes he can get his hands on.
The question for how you wend your way through those piles
of sexist bullshit is really what’s at stake. Because it isn’t a lie. Not about
what is, necessarily. These are fairly well entrenched tropes about male
sexuality. The argument you’re having is about what ought to be. It’s
about recognizing that simply because something is and always has
been, doesn’t mean it has to remain
that way forever.
What I found quite interesting is how desperately both men
in the above scenes needed their counterparts to not only listen to them, but
to believe what they were saying is true. Acceptance of that narrative of male
entitlement is exactly what gives it dominance. It’s for this reason that as
much at first as I wanted June to tell Casey that women could have just as much
meaningless sex as men (and in fact do), fuck you very much, I’m glad she
didn’t. Because that would have meant that she was still framing female sexual
identity around a male fantasy.
What I absolutely love about those scenes is the way Caan
does not pull punches with Casey and Tony’s complete dickishness. They are
assholes. Period. There is no attempt to make them likeable in their
assholishness and there is no attempt to rationalize their behavior. In fact,
one of the audience members was literally yelling “stop talking” at Casey at
some point in that scene.
My roommate pointed out later that talking itself drowned
out the ability to listen, that the characters were so focused on their own
point of view, on making the other person listen to what they had to
say, they, themselves, completely lost the ability to hear someone else.
Sometimes the voice we need to listen to the most comes in
the form of niggling doubts about our own behavior and beliefs.
Lucy spends her scene trying to figure out how she landed in
the role of nagging/suspicious girlfriend/wife. It’s especially puzzling to her
because she remembers as a child having complete clarity on how idiotic it was
for her mother to be demanding to know where her father had been even as he was
standing there with proof of his hunting activities dead in his arms.
But before she knew it there she was, asking her father and
then her boyfriend the exact same question, fully internalizing the fear that
the men in her life were biologically destined to be unfaithful.
Cultural tropes are the loudest voices we will ever hear.
They demand our attention. They demand we listen to them and accept their point
of view. It’s difficult to live a fully conscious life. It’s difficult to
attempt to reshape your identity when the call of societal norms is so strong,
when the punishment for breaking them can be swift and violent.
This brings me to the scenes that bookend “Minor
Conversations.” The first scene takes place in a waiting room. An hourglass
sits on the table between them. Jed is trying to get Trish to leave with him,
but she’s hesitant. There are rules, she says. And even as she stands, it takes
every bit of resolve to get herself to move. But they do make a break for it,
Trish and Jed.
The final scene takes place in a restaurant, and we witness
the end of a relationship. Kelly wants to make it work. She knows exactly what
they have to do, what Sean has to do, how she has to change. But Sean likes
things as they are. She doesn’t want to change. And so she walks away.
While there are those who will challenge and speak up
against oppressive societal “rules” there are always those who benefit from
them and their entitlement is not something they are going to willingly give
up.
“Minor Conversations” is steeped in Caan’s trademark humor
and populated with characters who are absolute wrecks. Some are holding on to
and opining their beliefs for dear life, some are questioning them, and some
are hiding out in pills, booze or weed. But all of them help shine a light on
the choices we make every day.
A few random observations:
*All the performers were wonderful, and to my layman’s eye
seemed to be having a blast bringing their characters to life.
Robyn Cohen was simply sublime, standing out in both scenes
in which she appeared. From tough talking New York accented trying to get up
the courage to run Trish in Scene One to Sean, loving and warm and heartbroken
even as she left her girlfriend sitting alone at the table in Scene Eight.
Mia Serafino was equally as wonderful, bringing some lovely
nuances to each of her three characters that made each one of them her own
woman. I was especially touched by her scene with Cohen, probably my favorite
scene of the night.
I’ve seen Joseph Pease in several of Caan’s productions and
he is a major talent. I’ll never forget his performance in “100 Days of
Yesterday” and I now look forward to seeing him on stage, even when he’s
playing an asshole J
Danny Barclay also stood out, doing a great job capturing
the voice and malaise of male entitlement.
*Some favorite moments:
Ashley Osborne as Rest Room Attendant Carrie using towels to
hoist Tara Conner’s drugged out self involved Deb up by her armpits and toss
her out of the bathroom.
Danny Barclay’s Ted wrapping the belt of his robe around his
neck like a noose as Mia Serafino’s Sloan tells him things he doesn’t want to
hear. The follow up of Sloan pulling the belt tight around his neck and nearly
choking the life out of Ted in frustration.
Danny Barclay’s Tony chopping away at a bunch of baby
carrots with a pair of shears.
Will McMahon’s Buddy overtly checking out Anton Narinsky’s
“Man” in the locker room. His cute pride in his own body then undercut by how
completely ripped and gorgeous the other man is. Buddy’s eager attempts to
pretend he knows what the hell “Man” is talking about because mostly he just
desperately wants to keep the conversation going. That the room cheered when
the two finally kissed.
*The introduction of two gay couples. One hilarious, the
other heartbreaking, treated no differently for their sexuality from the het
couples in the play. Their sexuality was in fact the least interesting thing
about them.
*My absolute desire and wish that someone would film these
productions and put them on youtube where fans across the globe could have the
same amazing experience that I did.
