Week in Reviews: Beast

In Beast, one of two new Off-Broadway plays opening this month by Academy Award-nominated writer Michael Weller, the titular creature could refer to several things. The beasts could be the two horribly scarred and mutilated Iraq war veterans, played by Logan Marshall-Green and Corey Stoll. Or the word could refer to something even bigger, the entirety of the brutal war itself and the corruption of the institution that is America, represented by a gigantic singing Mount Rushmore.

With pitch black comedy, Weller’s play manages to give a wake-up call without getting too preachy or overtly political, except for one slight misfire—a long-winded and obvious ending. Until then, we follow the two soldiers as they embark upon a quest to recapture the America they knew before the war, eventually making their way to the president with a solution to end all of the country’s problems. Voychevsky (Stoll), believed dead, starts the play by springing to life in front of Jimmy (Marshall-Green), somewhere between a zombie and Superman. It is a brilliant device, a literal thrusting of Iraq onto the home front. Jimmy, the more optimistic of the two, provides a nice contrast to the rougher Voychevsky. A scene where Jimmy and Voychevsky hire a pair of blind prostitutes, afraid that their scarred faces will appall anyone else, is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. Acceptance is a key issue since Jimmy and Voychevsky, outside of the war, lack purpose and focus, disciplined to a black and white military world that they have left behind. They are homeless, literally and figuratively.

The play is subtitled A Fever Dream in Six Scenes, and like all dreams, it projects an aura of unreality, a slightly off-focus world resembling reality but without so many rules. Luckily, director Jo Bonney does a phenomenal job in keeping things focused and coherent, helped by a remarkable lighting and design team. Beast is energetic and fast-paced, bitingly funny in the moment and bitter on reflection. It is a shame that the last scene, a confrontation with the current commander in chief, becomes a nasty little punch-line, funny and timely but contributing little to our understanding of Jimmy and Voychevsky, whose story never really comes to an end. Their plan is moronic and misguided, a lunatic notion about sending the right message to the rest of the world through torture, violence, and pain. But then, isn’t that what America is already about?

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Beast is playing at New York Theatre Workshop through Oct. 12. New York Theatre Workshop is located at 79 E. Fourth St. (between Bowery and Second Avenue). Student tickets are $20, and subject to availability. Go to nytw.org to learn more.