TOM TITUS -- Theater Review

Psychiatry, and some people’s desperate dependence on it, has been

examined by writers from Christopher Durang to Woody Allen, usually in a

highly comical, satirical vein.

When John Guare took on the topic 20 years ago in his play “Bosoms

and Neglect” -- which South Coast Repertory pounced on almost immediately

-- he brought it one step further. It’s still uproariously funny, but

this is quite definitely a black comedy, eliciting laughter and shudders

simultaneously.

SCR has brought Guare’s frenzied tale of three certified nut cases

back to its Second Stage for a production amplified by stunning set

design and lighting effects -- not to mention a trio of superlative

performances in what must be one of the most physically demanding

projects each has tackled.

The satiric static electricity crackles throughout. Director David

Chambers stirs this roiling kettle of emotional broth vigorously. His

cast responds with the physical and emotional bloodletting that is both

required and demanded for this sort of a play to succeed as well as it

does.

The early focus is on two thirtyish people, Scooper and Deirdre, who

share a common psychiatrist -- and who are both excessively bummed out

when the shrink takes a vacation. They turn to each other for what

amounts to a free session of therapy -- if one doesn’t count the scars it

leaves, both real and psychological.

While the specter of Scooper’s blind, aging, cancer-ridden mother

hovers over the scene, the pair compare notes and engage in some

intellectual one-upmanship of a high literary quality. In a beautifully

bizarre touch by scenic designer Darcy Scanlin, Deirdre’s apartment is

sheer white -- as are the hundreds of books therein, unsoiled by anything

as mundane as titles on their jackets.

Tim Choate delivers a raging, white-knuckled performance as Scooper,

whose strange name is explained late in the play. His anguish is fueled

not only by his analyst’s absence but by his guilt over the condition of

his mother, whom he wishes dead, and his affair with a buddy’s wife,

which is crumbling around him.

He meets his psychotic match in Cindy Katz as Deirdre, a book addict

with a five-session-a-week habit at the shrink’s. Katz revels in her

stunning intellectual and sensual persona, but she’s armed and dangerous,

a stimulating and wildly passionate woman. It’s the finest SCR work yet

from this familiar actress.

Completing the strange picture is Lynn Milgrim as Scooper’s

octogenarian mom, who’s stranger than either of the other two, warding

off cancer with a statue of St. Jude -- a scene Guare reportedly based on

his own mother’s oddness. Milgrim’s Henny is a fringe character in the

first act but comes well into her own in the second, punctuated by an

extended monologue that closes the play.

Scanlin’s scenic designs perfectly match the psychological brashness

of Guare’s story, abetted splendidly by Shigeru Yaji’s costumes and York

Kennedy’s lighting effects. The all-white apartment, with its Dali-esque

arrangement of books, is a master scenic stroke.

“Bosoms and Neglect” is a theatrical rant but a highly comic one, and

a razor-sharp sendup of psychiatry to rival Christopher Durang’s “Beyond

Therapy.”

Like “A Delicate Balance” on the main stage, it’s an intellectual

banquet.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

WHAT: “Bosoms and Neglect”

WHERE: Second Stage of South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive,

Costa Mesa

WHEN: 7:45 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with matinees at 2 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday

COST: $26-$47

CALL: (714) 798-5555