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Latin lava
BTW needs to rethink Veronika
BY IRIS FANGER

Veronika Vavoom Volcanologist
By Olga Humphrey. Directed by Jason Slavick. Set by J. Michael Griggs. Lighting by Stephen Boulmetis. Costumes by Molly Trainer. With Amy Barry, Christopher Brophy, Maureen Keiller, Jennie Israel, Jonathan Silver, and Jesus Manuel Santiago. Presented by Boston Theatre Works at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre through May 18.


As the 2002-2003 theater season draws to a close, there’s a late and blatant entry in the " What Were They Thinking " category: Boston Theatre Works’ world-premiere production of Olga Humphrey’s Veronika Vavoom Volcanologist. The play was initially developed in the company’s annual new-play festival, " BTW Unbound " and then vaulted into a mainstage production. What were they thinking?

The plot concerns one Veronika Vavimetzu, who has moved from studying volcanoes to jumping into them, lowering herself by ropes into the fire whenever someone needs to be rescued. Dressed in leather pants and a V-neck top that’s molded to her body and cut below the cleavage, this babe is hotter than the eruptions of nature down which she plies her trade. As the play opens on a two-story structure hung with red curtains, the ill-conceived design of J. Michael Griggs, Veronika is rappelling into some South American crater to retrieve the body of a 16-year-old who has chucked himself in. But young George turns out to be very much alive, brilliant, and hearing voices — this last the fault of his mother. So what else is new?

Don’t think you’ll be spared old mom — she’s a Park Avenue version of Cruella DeVil by the name of Bronwyn, with an obsession for shoes rather than Dalmatian puppies. Humphrey adds a pair of lovers pursuing Veronika: a nerdy scientist named Frederic, her true love; and a mysterious oversexed lover, Dominguez, who turns up only as a voice and a silhouette. There’s also a Back-Up Singer who slinks on stage to gyrate to the rhythm of the music each time Veronika turns on the boombox that seems to be part of her rescue kit.

The conflict between Veronika and Bronwyn over George’s fate drives the overstuffed plot, but the actors have a broad hurdle to cross in act two’s abrupt change of tone from farce to tragedy. Bronwyn morphs into Veronika’s mother, Basha, who’s on a journey to the Old Country to retrieve her son’s bones, thus setting up a contrast between the good mom willing to sacrifice her life for her children and George’s bad mom.

Evidently director Jason Slavick had as much trouble deciphering the play as this viewer did. He’s staged it awkwardly, taking every squirm of the plot seriously and laying it out tediously on stage. As Veronika and Bronwyn, Jennie Israel and Maureen Keiller, who have earned respectable reputations on other stages, are pushed into comic-strip overacting. Amy Barry takes all the other female roles, including the Back-Up Singer; Pele, the fire goddess, who it seems has left Hawaii for South America; and a teacher who shows up in an extraneous scene at a school where Veronika is giving a lecture.

The men fare better, though the character of George is hampered by the notion that if you’re bright enough to be accepted to Harvard at age 16, you must be psychotic. He’s played by Jonathan Silver, a senior at Needham High and clearly a comer. Christopher Brophy, as the hapless Frederic, mirrors the subtext of confusion in believable fashion. Jesus Manuel Santiago, who’s credited in the program as Dominguez, never makes it on stage.

Despite the jumble set before us, one can appreciate the effort of Jason Southerland, artistic director of Boston Theatre Works, to uncover new playwrights of promise and offer them fully staged productions. The company has presented, among other works, the Boston premieres of The Laramie Project and the rediscovered Tennessee Williams play Not About Nightingales. And Humphrey is not to be faulted for attempting an outrageous premise. But now it’s time for the two of them to open the bottom desk drawer, drop in the script (unless it can be whittled down to a sketch for Saturday Night Live), and move on.

Issue Date: May 9 - 15, 2003
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