Spend the Night in Jail
cast list
Gregg Enbrecht, Kerry Fitzgibbons, John Paul Harkins, Richard Hymes-Esposito, Raul Sigmund Julia, Lisa McDonough, Kevin McGraw
directed by
Robert Haufrecht, Richard Hymes-Esposito
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Spend the Night in Jail is the thematic title for a theatrical evening of two one-act plays, Hello Out There by William Saroyan and Deathwatch by Jean Genet. Both plays are set in a single jail cell and look at the dynamics of individuals trying to connect emotionally, even as one character in each is certain he is facing death. However, there is less commonality between the two than you expect.
Hello Out There was written in 1941 and is the story of a man accused of raping a married woman. He admits to the intercourse, but claims it was consensual until she demanded payment. The man has been moved to another city to protect him from being lynched, although he expects the mob will find him soon enough. The jailhouse cook and janitor, a delicate and emotional marooned young woman, is drawn to him. Richard Hymes-Espositio and Kerry Fitzgibbons play the couple and are able to establish a believable connection very quickly. Mr. Hymes-Espositio plays a slick hustler and Ms. Fitzgibbons is desperate to believe there is some way out of her life, a dead-end road though she's only sixteen.
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As written, the drama should come from the dichotomy between the time it takes to gain the girl's trust and the rapid rate at which time is running out for our inmate protagonist. But it doesn't. The drifter never seems rushed as he tries to win over the girl; his entreaties of “Hurry” are just words without a lot of feeling or action behind them. The audience doesn’t feel that doom is approaching. Ultimately, the audience doesn’t buy into the stakes of this game.
But if Hello Out There is detached from the audience, it isn’t from lack of trying. On the other hand, the second play, Deathwatch, is incomprehensible. Deathwatch was written in 1944 in French by Jean Genet. It attempts to be a study in masculinity, relationships and betrayal in prison. Due either to the translation or because the original play is dated, it does not succeed. Two young prisoners, John Paul Harkins and Greg Engbrecht, struggle for the admiration and attention of the cell-block boss Raul Sigmund Julia, who faces death for his offenses in two weeks.
There is a lot of running around, some fights and torrents of existential ramblings by the characters, but none of it connects. Without a grasp of these characters or even their motivations, their fights, taunts and screams are meaningless to the audience. Their interplay and discussions are not easy to follow, labored as they are by references to free will, duplicity and the hierarchy of evil deeds. Director Richard Hymes-Espositio (the drifter in Hello Out There) directs this show and plays up the action in order to keep the audience’s attention. It works for a while, but ultimately we don’t care what these characters are saying; no amount of stage fighting can hide that.
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New York reviews
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Three Sisters, Classic Stage Company
The Piano Lesson, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Momentum, Laurie Beechman Theatre
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, La MaMa E.T.C.
John Gabriel Borkman, BAM Harvey Theater
Blood From a Stone, Acorn Theatre
Malfi, Inc., Theatre 54
Pieces, 59E59 Theaters
A Delicate Balance, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Memorandum, Beckett Theatre
The Scottsboro Boys, Lyceum Theatre
Driving Miss Daisy, Golden Theatre
Futura, TBG Theatre
La Bete, The Music Box Theatre
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
A Life in the Theatre, Schoenfeld Theatre
In Transit, 59E59 Theaters
theatre
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