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Blind love
(by Bob Wilcox - May 27, 2009)
Would you invest in a play about a philosophy major who spends half the play quoting philosophers from Plato to Sartre, a play that is at its heart a two-hour illustration of a couple of Plato’s major concepts? It doesn’t sound very promising, does it?
But if the play is William Missouri Downs’ Cockeyed, get out your checkbook. Or on Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening, get over to the Kranzberg Arts Center in Grand Center and enjoy HotCity Theatre’s production of Cockeyed. Both play and production are hilarious and completely charming.
Our philosophy major is, of course, named Phil. Having been a philosophy major, the only job he can find is as an assistant to his boyhood friend Norm, who’s a low-level numbers cruncher in a large corporation. That’s where Phil falls hopelessly in love with the boss’s secretary, Sophia. Of course he does. Phil is a philosopher — a lover of sophia, which is “wisdom” if you’re Greek.
But Sophia cannot see Phil. She quite literally cannot see him, even when Norm introduces them in the office’s break room. That’s because Phil is a thoroughly nice guy. As Plato pointed out, if you saw a chair but didn’t know there was such a thing as a chair, had no name for it, no concept of “chairness,” then you wouldn’t see a chair. You would see some sticks of wood.
Sophia has no idea that there are really nice guys. She can’t conceive of such a thing. Therefore they don’t exist. Therefore Phil doesn’t exist. She can’t see or hear him.
Maybe this sounds like a bit of a stretch. But playwright Downs, director Marty Stanberry and his cast at HotCity make it work. Not only is it fiendishly clever and funny, but it says a lot about who we are and how I know who I am and how I know who you are, and about the advantages as well as disadvantages — and the moral responsibilities — of invisibility.
Adam Flores’ brilliant performance as Phil does a lot to make Cockeyed work. He’s wide-eyed, eager, innocent and determined, with exquisite timing and inflections. He reels us in with his frequent addresses to the audience, often beginning with “I know what you’re thinking” when he thinks we think he’s about to do something he shouldn’t. We like him. He’s a really nice guy.
As Sophia, Jennifer Nitzband is also a nice person, if increasingly confused by what’s happening. Her mother’s frequent phone calls pressure her to get married. Her boss wants to marry her and move her out of her basement apartment and into his mansion, but he sees her in the “dog” category (“come,” “sit,” “fetch”). No wonder Sophia doesn’t know nice guys exist.
As the boss, Tyler Vickers is brisk and all business in costume designer Felia Davenport’s three-piece blue suit and matching Bluetooth in his ear, which serves as another source of invisibility jokes.
Paul Pagano does a sweet job as harried, average-guy, normal Norm.
Alex Gaines’s set ingeniously and convincingly squeezes office, break room and basement apartment onto the Kranzberg’s stage, though the set’s geography, with the apartment between the two office settings, had me a little confused at first. Michael Sullivan’s lighting helps sort things out. And in Jeff Griswold’s sound design, the Bee Gees, along with the shadows in Plato’s Cave, unite the lover of wisdom with his Sophia.
• HotCity’s Cockeyed continues through May 30 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand Blvd. For ticket information call 289-4060 or visit www.hotcitytheatre.org.
Bob Wilcox also reviews theater for KDHX-FM, 88.1, and for Two on the Aisle on cable and on line at kdhx.org.
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