Disgrace - Blank Line Theatre Collective (theatre review)

Anderson

Since becoming super famous, Eric and I receive tons of offers from theatres to come and review their plays. The problem is, we are both also theatre artists and have a hard time getting away. So when we do we like to try new things and have new experiences, just as we think other artists in town should, so they may know what is happening in this wonderful city. Unfortunately, this past Saturday, we couldn't agree on anything, so we decided to go hangout at our favorite bar, Sluggers.

Eric

Yep, Andy and I often like to hit some balls at the batting cages while the girls marvel at our stances and we all listen to the latest Kenny Chesney tracks.

Anderson

We do this thing for the ladies, where we both go in to the cage, and I hit left handed, and Eric hits right. We swing at the same time, and whomever hits the ball first gets first dibs on the least weird girl who is watching us. But this time was different. We swung at the same time, and to our dismay, we hit each other in the heads with the bats and knocked each other out.

Eric

It was like a lightning bolt had struck us. I felt as if the world gave way to a dark and sinister cave of ice where nothing was as it seemed. It also smelled a lot like cookies baking and at one point I noticed a giant butterfly watching a TV made out of horn-rimmed glasses. I think he was watching an episode of "Soap."

Anderson

It's like we were floating around, looking down on the city of Jerusalem starting to feel a little sick. We started to land and we landed in a firewood yard. I wasn't sure where we were.

Eric

We touched down with the lightness of angels and the sky looked purple with menace. The firewood yard teemed with untold secrets. Luckily, we had our dream camera to snap some shots of this Elysian field of wood and trains forgotten forever.

Anderson

This industrial landscape forced a visceral experience out of my legs. Like they knew where to go. We were being called to the east by a man with a beard. This place friends, was called "The Business Zone".

Eric

But, like all Zones (Twilight, Inter, Loading) there was a price to be paid...a toll to cross the terminator line between light and dark, order and chaos. We beheld our bearded ferryman, waiting with an outstretched gnarled claw to lead us over the Stygian River and deeper down the rabbit hole.

Anderson

He required our Press Credentials, and we were obliged to behold them. He managed to peek through his smeared lorgnette to observe these highly valued packets of prominence. We could see from his smirk, he understood what we needed.

Eric

He led us past rooms of significance, filled with sights most mortals would be loathe to lay eyes upon. A box of cow hearts, the dreams of the dead, eldritch leathery wings flapping in the night. The gibbering sounds of lunacy on the other side of doors with no handles, no keys. A staircase longer than the deep of the ocean.

Anderson

Our fortune seemed as ghastly as the foreboding chortles of troubadours playing a single game of Bid Euchre behind a wash of Venetian Blinds. Where did we belong? Where was our home now?

Eric

Was it now this...place? We entered a long brightly lit room filled with other troubled souls longing for a country of their own. Would we all find something together here, under the watching Harvest Moon? A woman with no feet offered a supplication to us. A song of hope was sung quietly in a corner by a man wearing little else than a rope of indeterminate length. The rope snaked away into a hole so inky and murky it could only be the gate to hell...or heaven.

Anderson

The wench with no feet enticed us to her with her pulsating hand of sorrow. We were sure to follow her dictums as we were filled with affright by the other lonely wanderers. We were led quietly into a vast space where no air can break free.

Eric

I was so manic with expectation I could barely contain my peals of internal laughter and dismay! We were told that the middle of the room was "ours" and to never, ever leave it. If we ventured outside of the small island of safety...well, ours would be the 1000 small deaths of the bold and the vain.

Anderson

As we sat, puzzled in the abyss of darkness, despair set into our weak bones. Were we the men for this assignment? How can we be expected to tarry our lives on the wishes of such a being? We swallowed deep, feeding our gullets with the last breath ever to be promised us.

Eric

A light! A glorious light shown forth! Oh, mine eyes were astounded to see it! Three young women spilled out of the light, dressed in white diaphanous gowns and speaking in what seemed to be tongues. After a moment...or a year, I couldn't say...their speech finally settled into a pace and form I could recognize, even though my brain could scarcely comprehend it.

Anderson

Their speech included the name "Francois" and talks of Eggs Sandwiches. This was what we were supposed to be witnessing. Our existence had become a Macabre Circus of Voyeurism and I could not look away. These forms of flesh and fabric had us in their smooth hairless grips. As they spoke to each other, and in turn to us, the watching throng, the matters switched quickly and emotions ravaged their wet and nimble bodies.

Eric

I could only guess what these women had done or not done, seen or not seen. Was it real? Had Francois had them all carnally? Was there a murder? What year was this? Is that a soda can? So many unanswered questions. I felt impotent and useless, as these sirens continued to weave a tale of lies and deceit and eggs and almost taking off all their clothes but then not doing it. The eroticism was palpable and sustained.

Anderson

Were they going to finally kiss and let their thighs become the only victims in this barbarous game of sweat and passion? No, they were not. They were instead to continue their tales of woe and confusion for a while longer. Until my senses had been worn down to the quick.

Eric

Lightning! A shock to the system! My arms turned to gooseflesh as the women screamed and gyrated in front of a scrim of no color except for the stabbing white of flashing and terror! What was this? Where had we gone? My eyes and mouth had locked in a rictus of horror! And escape came into my mind. Was it possible to make it to my own home, my own bed? Preposterous...we were locked in, forever.

Anderson

And as quickly as this dream had begun, it was finished. We grasped for the middle being. She smiled with the light of a wild bears countless hungry gazes. It was not to be. She had escaped our reach and left us with the colors of injustice surrounding our lovelorn brows. Our daughters of ecstasy have drowned in the darkness!

Eric

With no warning, I awoke on the floor of the batting cage at Sluggers, calling out the word "EGGS SANDWICH!" over and over, like a mad fool. I was covered in peanut shells and Rascal Flatts shouted at me about fast cars and freedom from the jukebox. My mouth was dry, and I shivered all over. My feet ached, although I had not walked on them in hours.

Anderson

"Dude, what was that?" I asked. “It felt like I had a stroke.”

Eric

"Holy fucking shit, dude, did we knock each other out with those bats?"

Anderson

"Oh man, we are idiots. You wanna grab a pizza and pretend this never happened?"

Eric

"You know that I do want that."

And that's what we did. But wait...the camera...the night of phantasmagoric wonders? Did it happen?

Maybe. Or maybe.


Disgrace: B+

-Eric Roach, Anderson Lawfer
-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach