Denis Johnson’s "Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames" By Sai Corson Denis Johnson, the West Coast poet, novelist, and now playwright better known for his short story-turned-film, Jesus’ Son, graced the opening of his new play, “Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames,” at the Viaduct Theatre on Western Avenue on Saturday, March 15. He also gave readings of the piece, with cast members, at Quimby’s and an additional short story reading at Myopic Books over the weekend. The play’s storyline revolved around the roughly intentional reunion of the Cassandra family for the wedding of the family member’s high school sweethearts-the love of their lives--to one another. The betrothed drop in on the humble homestead to announce their “dis-invitations” of their former sibling loves. It becomes clear watching the antics of the brothers Cassandra why this drastic measure might be necessary. One brother, Cass, (by light-lipped, light-eyed Ben Viccellio), newly sober from his road-bed Wild Turkey exploits begs his father for a fortnight on the sofa while he awaits his dint at the Starlight flophouse on Idaho Avenue; the other, a greasy outback fugitive dubbed simply Bro (via a gusty appropriate Steve Walker), arrives for the wedding from a 20-acre ranch up near Redding where he tends goats for keep. Hyperbolic gutteralism with a lyric singe. “Why the dysfunction?” one might be compelled to inquire. As the scene between the two brothers unfolds, prodded by Cass’s self-help satire undertow and the schizophrenic oracular television, they revisit their childhood catastrophe in which, before the horrified eyes of her other three children, their mother ran over their baby sister’s head with the Impala in the driveway. Hysterically. (Original footage on blue-blinking TV). They discuss their bed-ridden Roy Orbison-impersonating father (an adorably daffy, penchant Ian Harris). Bro raspily hollers, “Well, wouldn’t you be depressed if your wife ran over your kid, and wouldn’t you be fucked up if your mother did that? Well, he is depressed and we are fucked up. I don’t mind actually, I kind of like it.” Typical Johnson. Ten-gallon acting from Steve Walker, robed in the arch-backwoods ensemble of beard, grubby white shirt, tattered flannel, oil-stained quilted vest, sagging jeans and logging boots. Ben Viccellio, as the autobiographical roving poet in Hawaiian shirt and shit-kickers, sang a pretty tenor during the first few acts but lost the stage to Bro’s bass-wind towards the end. Casting was tight and immaculate: Cindy Johnson, Denis Johnson’s Alice B, commented post-show that they were so pleased with the cast’s ability to come off as a family, there was a quality with this group that she did not find in other cities’ theatre communities. Perhaps the one exception to thesbian excellence, Julia Siple tip-toed onto stage in Act 3 as the sugarplum sister Marigold (she was spared her
brothers’ acerbic character as she was too young to remember the gore). Her deliverance tasted like Junior Prom. In the same scene, Ian Harris, who played the father, struggled valiantly to bring out the real mad rambling tragedy of his lines against her loud saccharine. In fact, his character etched itself permanently in my mind: watching loony-tunes in “comic” pajamas, wearing Roy Orbison shades and feigning madness to fend off his daughter, whom he was certain was the Feds. With deep resonance toward West Coast fringe seekers, road mystics, tired evangelical grandmothers (Ariel Brenner as Grandma cranked and sputtered: perfectly threadbare), and dead-pan new age hill-billies (the retard appeared as Kali, gold sequins, red tie-dye and blue-faced minstrelsy to turn the other cheek at the play’s apex, with a bloody broken nose, courtesy Bro)--Johnson’s godspeed backwoods lore gifts his caricatures with an intelligence of which Zora Neal Hurston would be proud, diagonally. He digs into bone and arrow with devastating whimsy. Laffy taffy and hard-rot poetry, Mr. Johnson. Sai Corson is a Chicago-based freelance writer and poet.