Theater Review: Carnival Round the Central Figure

Photos by Deneka Peniston
Ted Caine as the Central Figure

Dancing Around Death
By Lauren Yarger
The wife is in denial, the psychologist channels positive thinking, the nurse keeps drawing blood for tests, the preacher and his choir think they can conquer it and a friend wants to confront it. The only one who doesn’t have any say in how to deal with death is the victim himself in Diana Amsterdam’s Carnival Round the Central Figure playing a limited engagement Off Broadway.

The “central figure,” a.k.a. Paul or Pamela (Ted Caine), painted a ghastly white and looking emaciated, lies on a black hospital bed slab in the middle of the stage while all of the various parties connected with the dying Paul, or already deceased Pamela, dance around death (sometimes, literally, with the choir, accompanied on keyboard, directed by David James Boyd, singing rousing renditions of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Amazing Grace.”). The simple, but effective set design is by Walt Spangler with Jisun Kim and Melissa Shakum, lighted by Eric Southern; costume design is by Katja Andreiev.

Sheila (Christine Rowan), Paul’s wife, is in denial and talking about what new appliances they will buy for their home when he returns there. “Doesn’t he look better than the last time you visited?” she defiantly asks his co-worker Kate (Danni Simon). Kate tires to speak the truth, but is stopped by her boyfriend Richard (Ed Stetz) and by a creepy nurse (Kori Rushton) who sits just to the side of the action in a rocking chair waiting to draw out Paul’s last drops of blood with her super-sized syringe.

Dr. Maryanne stops by each night to channel positive energy and to convince Paul that if he can only say, “I am,” everything will be all right. TV evangelist Bob (Shane LeCocq), however, views death as a punishment for sin and encourages his followers to “Speak Straight to Jesus,” the name of his television program. He tries to lead Becky and John Tupper (Cynthia Silver, David Michael Kirby) through the pain of a daughter, Pamela, who has fallen into sin. How Kate didn’t deal with her friend Pamela’s death then, affects how she wants to deal with Paul’s death now. She dismisses the preacher as hypocritical and annoys Dr. Maryanne during her lectures (complete with Power Point like video enhancements designed by Kaveh Jaerian) by refuting her claim that there is a chance someone might be able to overcome death.

It’s an intriguing play, if a little difficult to follow. There are a lot of people coming and going (direction by Karen Kohihaas) in addition to Amsterdam’s annoying use of repeated scenes. Instead of just repeating a line or two of dialogue to let us know we’ve come back to the present, we get most of the scene repeated again at length. The play would benefit from a good edit with better differentiation between past and present, but it does have a lot to say about how people deal with, or perhaps more to the point, don’t deal with, death and the people going through the process.

It plays at IRT Theater, 154 Christopher St., third floor, NYC through Jan. 30. For tickets, visit www.irttheater.org.

Christians might also like to know:
• Sexual dialogue
• Language
• God’s name taken in vain (by the preacher)
• Theological misspeak by the preacher who says the Lord turns Pamela from a beautiful girl into a beast after she chooses sin. He apparently also teaches Kate that God has hidden death in sex as a means to weed out the world’s sinners.