Motives for “Little Murders”
New York in 1967 was a mad, mad world, and not in a funny way. Gritty, noisy, unforgiving, plagued by muggings, power failures, random shootings and obscene phone calls, it was enough to drive a family a bit insane.
Such is the context of “Little Murders,” the play Jules Feiffer wrote in and of that era. He was, alas, ahead of his time; the play closed quickly in 1967 but was a hit two years later – after the ensuing political assassinations, protests and riots made the world that much more ripe a target for his wicked satire.
The play, from M&G Productions for the Sonoma Arts Live season, closes its local run with shows June 25-28 at Andrews Hall.
Feiffer himself said the play was conceived as an essay on what he perceived to be going on in America in the mid-1960s. “The post-assassination climate of urban violence made me realize this country was in the process of having an unstated and unacknowledged nervous breakdown,” he commented. “All forms of authority which had been previously honored and respected, on every level of society, were slowly losing their validity.”
To him, it all suggested a dark comedy. New Yorkers. Go figure.
“I love Feiffer’s salty approach to society in turmoil,” says director Gerrett Snedaker. “The characters deal with all of this absurdity as if it happens to everyone, everywhere, and is just part of a normal day.”
The plot centers around a ‘normal’ family, the Newquists, in whose apartment the audience is locked, doors shut tight against an uncertain world.
Slowly, normal turns to absurdity. The father (played by Mark Molina) is losing his patriarchal placemark amongst a neurotic wife (Thea Rhiannon); his odd (60s for gay) son (Paul Shafer); and a daughter (Meghan Lehman) struggling between oppression and liberation. Her fiancé/husband (Paul MacKinnon) cares not to struggle against the morphing society – he lets himself get beat up by street thugs. It passes the time.
Feiffer was best known as a cartoonist, for the Village Voice and The New Yorker, so he knows from one-liners. But the strength of the Sonoma production, and its strongest acting moments, come in monologues, particularly by Rhiannon and Lehman. Before things really blow up, it’s the women who do the deeper thinking about their place in the emerging world.
Actor George Bereschik plays two roles: a police inspector, and the meatier part of a New Age clergyman who marries the couple after a witty, near brutal sermon of advice. The lone Sixties hippie in the play, Bereschik rises above the stereotype. Another one-scene stealer is Jim Levy as the judge, the voice of old old-school tradition and values. That these entrances break the claustrophobic spell of the family apartment adds to the impact.
It’s a less threatening world now, one where an obscene phone call seems almost quaint. But is today’s Manhattan, cleaned-up and gentrified, any less stressful? Ask a cartoonist.
“Little Murders” at Sonoma Community Center, 276 E. Napa St. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Sundays, 2 p.m. $12-$22. Sonomartslive.org.
