Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough To Say I Love You? debuted off-Broadway in New York last week after a critically acclaimed run in London. A 45-minute piece in which the political relationship between Britain and America is played out as a lustful yet wholly unhealthy homosexual affair between a whiny Brit with dependency issues and an arrogant, domineering American, it sounded right up my metaphorical alley! Apparently I wasn’t drunk enough.
I’d say a lot of the general populous of the New York theater-going crowd likely shares some of my lefty liberalism when it comes to the perversely poisonous relationship between Bush and Blair, but Churchill’s manifestation of this perspective as a series of rapid-fire unfinished sentences was, ultimately, more irritating than politically affirming.
“Drunk enough to say I love you?” is America’s pickup line when we first meet the pair (Britain and America, Bush and Blair, whatever…) sharing a drink together on a couch. It is on this couch they stay, alternately luxuriously lounging, sprawling exhaustedly, caressing and bickering as their love blossoms along with their plans for global annihilation. Their plans include, but are not limited to: bombing Iraq, Iran, Korea, Israel; star wars; bioterrorism; waterboarding. At the beginning of each scene, the couch is suspended ever higher in the air, as the men get figuratively high on power, their plans taking them further and further away from reality. (The bitter truth here us that all these plans to bomb, maim, torture, kill, and conquer space have largely been laid in reality.)
This aspect of the play is great, and is exaggerated once in a while as one of the men drops a glass off the side of the couch and it slips silently away into darkness. In addition, the dysfunctional relationship does produce more than a few laughs as the men unravel, the Brit being reduced to a sniveling wreck at times when he provokes the American’s wrath by bringing into question the harshness of a biological warfare act on innocents civilians. The American, meanwhile, has gone from a charming smooth talker in a bar to a frothing, attention-seeking child who screeches: “You must love me! You MUST love me!” at the play’s end.
Nonetheless, the stylistic scripting of unfinished sentences was tiresome within minutes. Perhaps Churchill was attempting to create an illusion to Watergate-style recordings that cut in and out, or maybe her metaphor was simpler: The U.S. and England are so co-dependent they finish each other’s sentences. In any case, it was enough to drive one couple out of the theater withing ten minutes, leaving the rest to collectively whisper: “This is so weird!” between every scene (which is irksome in and of itself).
So, just in case you were considering paying $40 to see this play, I have generously compiled the following list of eight ways to better spend that money:
1) Donate it to Amnesty International so the good folks there can continue to aid the victims of people like the two men in this play.
2) Buy yourself a medium-priced single malt Scottish whiskey, say Bowmore, and drink it until you are intoxicated enough to tell someone you love them. Then tell them. It will be more satisfying.
3) Enjoy a couple of $15 martinis with a friend on one of the comfortable couches at the Algonquin Hotel. Speak to each other about politics in complete sentences. It will be more satisfying.
4) Buy a copy of the script from the box office, then have fun with your friends filling in the blanks at the end of every sentence.
5) Buy a ticket to George Packer’s Betrayed, also playing off-Broadway, which makes a much more genuine political statement and boasts complete sentences.
6) Donate the money to the National Institute for Literacy, and help others to learn how to complete sentences.
7) Keep the money and just watch The Colbert Report. The writer’s strike is over!
8) If you’ve already arrived in New York with the intention of seeing the show, try putting to test Rachel Ray’s theory that you can eat anywhere for $40 a day.
–Julia Clarke
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
Leave a comment
I completely…
…similar reaction.
Julia I think I…
Comment by David 03.11.08 @ 1:35 pm