Wants Flying Wants Falling

Christine Lahti stars hoping for Flying Wants Falling. An Atlantic Theater Company presentation from the play in one act by Adam Rapp. Directed by Neil Pepe. Sandra Cabot - Christine Lahti Wilma - Quincy Tyler Bernstine Dr. Bertram Cabot - Reed Birney Dirk Von Stofenberg - Cotter Cruz Cora Cabot - Katherine Waterston Celeste Von Stofenberg - Betsy Aidem James Von Stofenberg - Shane McRaeAdam Rapp produces funny lines for frightening people. That is not a shabby talent which is on smart display in "Wants Flying Wants Falling," an absurdist comedy of manners in regards to the primal instincts that surface each time a wealthy and pretentious Connecticut couple host an intimate supper party. Neil Pepe's slickly helmed production for your Atlantic Theater Company puts scribe's capabilities within the perfect light. But, comes the reckoning, Rapp doesn't supply the goods. For that savage talk and bestial imagery, you will discover no teeth -- and for that reason no bite -- with this offbeat but superficial comedy. To suggest the social affectations of Sandra (Christine Lahti, exercising her sublimely wicked wit) and Bertram Cabot (Reed Birney, making easygoing look easy), set designers Andrew Boyce and Takeshi Kata have hoisted a massive chandelier inside the handsomely fitted table inside the couple's stylish diner. But we all know that Sandra's a snob because she's teaching her maid Wilma (carried out with subtle sass by Quincy Tyler Bernstine) to speak French. Just before the Cabots in addition to their site visitors really sit lower to eat, Rapp ("Red-colored-colored Light Winter") front-loads his enjoy some cruelly funny cocktail-hour fun and games. Bert tosses the very first conversational ball by telling uncle Dirk Von Stofenberg (Cotter Cruz) simply how much he loved a present trip to Borneo, within the awed opinion "an area where character and mythology appear inseparable." But know-it-all Sandra keeps cutting together with scathing criticisms and corrections, and after driving poor, emasculated Bert in the room, she practically rapes Dirk. Preening herself as being a well-groomed bird of prey (credit Theresa Squire for your stunning Chanel suit), the confident Lahti swoops lower relating to this spellbound pigeon and virtually eats him alive. The avian imagery is not abnormal, because flocks of untamed geese seem to become undertaking suicide and landing inside the Cabots' backyard. One corpse seems since the primary dinner course, although some receive for the African lion the Cabots' teenaged daughter Cora (perfectly creepy in Katherine Waterston's poised perf) claims is jailed inside the basement. Keeping the metaphor aloft, Dirk recalls his childhood fantasy of getting a chance to fly. His suicidal boy, James (Shane McRae), really attempted it -- and fell. When dinner is finished, paradise has switched ominous colors as well as the character imagery remains beaten to dying. Furthermore to people geese round the lawn as well as the lion inside the basement, you will discover references to wildebeests, crocodiles, orangutans, barracudas, deer, as well as the rabid wolf in "Old Yeller." The brutal character in the human animal can be a familiar dramatic theme together with a popular among Rapp's, but many of this is here seems gratuitous and without point. These suburban couples may be just like contemptible their children think they are, but real savagery seems beyond them. Unlike the couples who lose their civilized veneer in Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage," T.S. Eliot's "The Party," or a number of plays that exist in a diner table, the Cabots as well as the Von Stofenbergs receive nothing to fight about, pointless whatsoever to bare tooth and claw. Too for all Rapp's allusions to creatures that fly, crawl, frolic in the water, or wear cat's foot, the monsters in this derivative play are actually pretty tame monsters.Set, Andrew Boyce and Takeshi Kata costumes, Theresa Squire lighting, Tyler Micoleau original music & appear design, production stage manager, Erin Maureen Koster. Opened up on March. 3, 2011. Examined Sept. 30. Running time: 1 hour, 20 MIN. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com