How do you get ultra-conservative audiences to buy into a virulently unpleasant, ultra-savage satire? You warn them “this will offend you,” further using the play’s kind of foul language and barbed insults. But if they “Go now!” while slow, provocative music introduces The Road to Nirvana, they will miss a hell of a Venice Theater Stage II production.
Arthur Kopit is spoofing David Mamet’s style and casting of Madonna in the Broadway debut of his play, Speed-the-Plow, about the ruthlessness of people wanting the power to produce a movie script. Kopit plunges into the idea of Al, abetted by girlfriend Lou, sniggling Jerry into helping him beat Hollywood moguls at their own game. The three will snag the cokey-kooky rock idol Nirvana to back and star in an autobiographical film, editing “Moby Dick” (with a big white penis being the whale and she as Ahab).
Al’s first challenge, besides speaking occasional dialogue that doesn’t include the F-word, is to get Jerry to trust him. Though Al had screwed Jerry’s wife, who killed herself, and cost him a lucrative career, Al insists “the past is past” and Lou has changed him. What does the trick for Al is convincing him the Nirvana film “will leave our footprints in the sands of time.”
Then come really revolting tests of devotion and fidelity to the project that Jerry must pass. But cutting his wrists is only a prelude to having to eat the most nauseous thing an audience ever gasped at! How Jeremy Guerrero shows vulgar Al relishing the feeding is as memorable as the moment when Lou leads the spoon to Steve O’Day’s mouth and his look of disgust as his Jerry takes a self-forced big gulp!
In contrast to the rather undeveloped Lou, though played with nonchalance by Alison Prouty (even in her beginning topless scene), Vera Samuels as Nirvana displays confidence. She has the power and money the others desire. In her pool lanai, she likes watching herself on the TV alternating with pictures of flames. Thinking herself a reincarnated Egyptian princess, Nirvana wears a golden dress and occupies a pyramidal throne-like seat.
When Al, Jerry, and Lou arrive, Nirvana greets them with a blue lace half-veil on her face. After Jerry is captured by her vamping, she tells her own ideas about the film and what she will ask him to give to prove his trust and love. (Al can’t help; he’s already given his all.) To conclude, there come surprises from Jerry--both a negative and an affirmation. After all, he says, “This film is going to make fucking history.” The end is a scream. Abetting the fine main actors at VT is a stream of guests who play Al’s houseboy on alternating nights. His beach house is suggestive with only the sunny lounging area staged, but adequate. Designer Brian Freeman seems to have had more fun with the burnished golden surroundings of Nirvana’s “throne room” lit by Ryan Mueller as if an interior of an Egyptian burial chamber with a well-stocked bar.
Much credit goes to Kelly Wynn Woodland for her textured direction. One meaning of the word “Nirvana” is a state of perfect happiness. Woodland’s introduction and conclusion do just what author Kopit seemed to want to frame his devastating spoof, and he should be able to reach Nirvana with it.
