First things first: The crowd stood and roared at the end of Ted Lange’s “Soul Survivor.”
It wasn’t opening night. It wasn’t a padded audience. It was a sincere response. Clearly, theater critics are not the Shadow Theatre’s target audience. Me? I felt like the sole survivor of a raunchy, superficial and formulaic Faustian romp that’s surprising only for just how icky the man we know best as Isaac the “Love Boat” bartender can be behind a keyboard.
That, and the voice of the story: It’s big and it’s black. That’s what makes anything our only black theater company stages worthy of attention. But c’mon: “Two Trains Running” followed by “Soul Survivor”? Shadow’s slogan ought to be “classics and crud.”
“Soul Survivor” is so predictable, it would never get green-lit for a sitcom. Then again, it has enough explicit sex and foul language to land a prime spot on HBO.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Guy is a standup, well, guy, who is visited by a devil so charming he could clear churches. Why target such a decent, dull dope with a heart of gold, not greed? Because even jovial red rapscallions enjoy a challenge. He’s going after a good Guy.
Surely you stopped me, but go on I must – it’s my job.
Guy’s price: Not mind-blowing sex. Not fame or fortune. True luuuuv. Of course in such a clichéd and derivative idiom, our sunny Satan can’t produce love. “Too much work,” he says. So, no deal.
Well, pitch your arrowed fork and what do you know? The next day, chivalrous Guy is falling hard for an audacious mystery lady who is everything he’s looking for. You’ll just fall over in shock to discover who’s arranged this chance meeting. Nah, you won’t.
As a devil stolen straight from “Damn Yankees” – but given some color – big, burly Vincent C. Robinson works the crowd like a pro. And there’s an odd sincerity between Guy (Cristofer L. Davenport, so riveting as simpleton Hambone in “Two Trains Running”) and Stacey (Ghandia L. Johnson). I said sincere – not sweet. These two talk – and act – with off-putting, broad sexual frankness.
I could opine about how Lange might have delved into greater moral complexities. How there is no constancy in Guy’s character. But as is, the moral code is erratic and confounding. One minute Guy is a religious goody two-shoes, the next, he’s bedding a woman he’s known an hour.
Then again, the recurring metaphor for true love here is trout fishing – a pretty disturbing visual if you think about the poor girl with the hole ripped into her cheek.
Best not to think too hard about the problems inherent in this play. Better to leave it for what it is – an unpretentious and, yes, vulgar look at modern-day relationships.
Shadow’s staging, also directed by Lange, is equally surface. At times, he wants his devil to sound all super-scary-like, but you’ll snicker at the attempted effect. Rather than run the actor’s live voice through a loop, the poor guy has to just shut up whenever his recorded voice gets piped in “Exorcist”-like.
You’ll also, of course, predictably hear every pop song ever written with the word “devil” in it. The climax turns on the most basic of sitcom conventions.
So … did I mention the crowd went crazy? Because they did. They sang along to the scene- change music (“Everybody Plays the Fool”). They audibly predicted punch lines. They “uh- huhed” every universal relationship observation. When these characters sneeze, they say, “Bless you.”
So the devil with me.
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“Soul Survivor”
COMEDY | Shadow Theatre Company | Written and directed by Ted Lange | Starring Cristofer L. Davenport, Ghandia Johnson and Vincent C. Robinson | THROUGH JUNE 30 | At the McGlone Center, 1420 Ogden St. | 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays | 2 hours | $25 | 303-837-9355 | WARNING: Profanity, sexual situations.
