The Pain and the Itch is a comedy by playwright Norris, who skillfully demonstrates the hidden truth that prowl underneath the carpet of an ideal family. On the 31st of February 2014, Custom Made Theatre took to the stage to perform The Pain and the Itch with Dorian Lockett, Eden Neuendorf, Gabriella Jarvie, Jean Forsman, Justin Gillman, Karen Offereins, and Peter Townley, assuming the roles of main characters.
The play’s setting is in a modern living room where the host family in the company of visitors jointly partakes Thanksgiving dinner. The hard-to-tolerate, but funny, mocking play takes place in an amply selected and well-furnished apartment in an undisclosed town. The visitors seemed pleased with Kelly and Clay, a well contended, left-leaning open-minded couple, and their closest, but not so dear relative, Cash, a surgeon who preferred to use Martini as painkiller. The setting of the play was in identical, but with separated time frames for purposes of enhancing its dramatic effect.
The central theme of the play is greed with the playwright ingeniously employing humor to ridicule societal ills. Norris’ satirical crackers target the arrogant, left-leaning middle-high class people and their fantasies. With the exception of Cash’s Russian girlfriend, Kalina, a survivor of cruel childhood, everyone was well-informed, smart, and successful, despite Clay being a conservative dad. In the play, Norris demonstrates that despite the knowledge, wisdom and wealth that these people had, they were still the capitalist characterized by nothing but self-centeredness, insincerity and bath faith.
The green walls and the wooden furniture created a calm environment for the audience. The apartment appeared warm and relaxed, and this made the performance enjoyable. The gentle and soft lighting suited the living atmosphere, and their adjustments, which varied between darker and brighter as the play ensued, ensured that the audience followed every plot. In the play, the characters are smartly dressed in fancy costumes, and this was deliberately meant to connect the play to the contemporary audience. The mood was successfully expressed through the employment of sound effects, and this made the audience comprehend the dynamics of the play.
Largely, the performers successfully created an assembly, whose interaction was nothing but effective, although there were a few parts, which were confusing. The stage movements of the characters enhanced the overall performance and believability of the narrative since they instilled the aspect of liveliness. With the exception of Mr. Hadid, who seemed a nervous bystander and failed to meet the audience’s expectations, all actors fully fitted the play. They excelled in creating a self-centered gathering that Bruce Norris had imagined.
One of the outstanding performances was the fight between Cash and Kalina, and particularly where Kalina was corrected by her boyfriend on how to pronounce the word perspective. Despite the countless efforts to help her pronounce the word in the right way, Cash bore not fruit. Another interesting performance was when Kalina offered to teach Kayla, Clay’s daughter, on matters concerning smoking. She asserted that smoking was bad, and Kayla should never try it, although she cunningly rushed outside the room to smoke during the teaching session.
Among the aspects that caught my glimpse was the directing of the play. The stage was comfortably balanced, and thus, it was easy to locate actors as the play unfolded. The well-lit stage ensured that no actor was obscured while ensuring the adaptation reflected, as well as enhanced, the original ideas that Bruce Norris had in mind while drafting the comedy. This is an indication that the concept employed by the director was in alignment with the thoughts that Norris originally had.
As for my opinion, the script was well interpreted by the director of the play, Dale Albright. Despite a few adjustments with respect to the flow of the play, the original Norris’ ideas were apparent: the self-centered and hypocritical medium-high class Americans were monsters regardless of their knowledge and smartness. Mr. Albright was able to demonstrate that with minor alterations and adaptations, the play can be relevant to any audience. He successfully conveyed Norris’ message to the audience, which was that despite the outward look of this community, they were filthy on the inside. Further, he illustrated how all might seem well in an ideal family, yet the opposite is the truth, as the case of Clay and Kelly.
However, there were certain aspects of the play that were extremely confusing. For instance, the role that Hadid played, where he was quiet during most part of the play and out of the blue he bumped into the conversation to ask irrelevant questions. Despite the small hitch, the rest of the play was easy to comprehend, as well as to relate to the general theme.
In my opinion, The pain and the Itch, a play circumspectly plotted and characterized by the flair of comics, showed how satire can efficiently be used to scorn social ills of the contemporary society in a funny way. The performances of Justin Gillman and Eden Neuendorf were breathtaking, and believably convincing. This is among the first plays by Bruce Norris and gives raw actors a scope to develop their talents.