'The House of Yes' offers unique experience

By: Kate Dean

Posted: 4/11/02

Take a candle and enter "The House of Yes."

No, seriously. When you arrive at the house where the show is staged, 709 Clarendon Ave., you will be given a candle and a brief introduction by Frank Cermak Jr., the show's director and founder of Red Envelope Productions.

Cermak will explain to you that Red Envelope doesn't produce plays, they create experiences — and quite an experience it is.

This Pascal residence is a very twisted, Jerry Springer-esque household. Mrs. Pascal is the condescending mother of three children: Anthony, a Princeton dropout; Marty, a boy hankering for normalcy and Jackie O, a recently released mental patient. Marty and Jackie are twins, incidentally.

They are also, incidentally, incestuous.

The show takes place on Thanksgiving during a hurricane. Marty brings Leslie, his naive corn-fed fiancee to meet his family, and basically, all hell breaks loose.

The cast was modest in size, comprised of Nina Bernstein (Mrs. Pascal), Eric Charleston (Anthony), Mark Schweikert (Marty), Allison Reed (Jackie O), and Darrin Revitz (Leslie). The performances turned in by the entire cast were truly impressive.

Charleston particularly had a good night, and Reed traced such a complex emotional trail that I fear for the poor girl's post-show sanity.

It was truly refreshing to watch actors filling the skin of their characters, changing their tone and volume because it made sense to do so and not because they just thought they should simply talk loud. This was a dirty, messy, complicated show, peopled by neurotic and difficult characters. But the cast rose to the challenge, guided by the meticulous direction of Cermak.

The idea of the show is to sink the audience into the Pascal's world, to make them "the other dinner guest" as Cermak put it. Not quite theater in the round, it was as close as you can get with the audience sitting only inches from the actors on the floor of the house's attic.

It's also not a bad idea to call ahead and reserve seats. Because of the limited space, the actors were at times in shadow, sometimes looming over the audience. The cramped quarters caused some of the action and expression to be lost.

Despite the lack of appropriate space, "House of Yes" succeeds on many levels. This twisted comedy provided a fresh and fun night of theater. It was also very moving, with the audience being ushered back down the stairs in silence without a curtain call to lavish their love on the cast and people responsible for their evening's entertainment.

There are two words that spring to mind about "The House of Yes": damn good.

Kate Dean is a junior speech communication major. E-mail her at poesiagrl@aol.com.