Firehouse Theatre: "This Is How It Goes" on a dark and stormy night

Today I got my email update from Firehouse Theatre and halfway down, after the blurbs, there was a note that tonight would be a special, rainy-night pay-what-you-will ticket deal for "This Is How It Goes."

All right! I took them up on it, since this was exactly the motivation I needed to go see a play I kind of wanted to see, but wasn't dying to attend. (I payed twice what I paid for a cup of coffee (bottomless) and a piece of chocolate pecan pie at Garnett's this afternoon. So today was a high-flyin' kind of day for me, and if you have any spare freelance writing jobs or substitute teaching gigs for me, please let me know.)

I refuse to discuss what this play is about. That's an exercise in reductivity; the play is a veritable smorgasbord of about-ness, so you can take your pick from the topic that hits closest to home for you. But does overdetermination make a play good? Sort of -- at least, I prefer plays that aren't excruciatingly simple.

What I truly liked about the play itself was its pacing and gradual revelation of information. It's got a story, and it's told well -- at least the "acting" bits are. Playwright Neil Labute chose to use a narrative frame involving the white male lead talking directly to the audience, although actually it feels like he's writing directly to the audience, as the character is a playwright supposedly, I think, writing the play as we go along, or some sort of worn-out post-anti-post-modern technique that, come to think of it, is rather like blogging.

I got tired of it, as you have of my discussing it.

The Firehouse website has links here to the Style Weekly, WCVE and Times-Dispatch reviews. I agree with the universal sentiment that the acting by Iacovo, Kennedy and Satterfield and direction by Patton are top-notch. It's the kind of production that makes me glad to live in Richmond, even though I wouldn't say the play itself is one I'd go see again.

A note on the set design, which at least two critics didn't like: My first thought on seeing it was the Malvina Reynolds song, "Little Boxes," a song which I think is only true enough to be a lie we want to believe in. Chew on that, if you've seen the play, eh? The music during the play matched the ticky-tacky perfectly. (It was the props I didn't care for; Cody and Belinda are wealthy, but the props didn't reflect that.)

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

P.S. Yes, that photo's from "Being John Malkovich." No, I can't explain why I thought it fit. Mostly, I'm just trying to use more pictures in my blog.