HotCity Theatre's rough stuff production of "A Clockwork Orange" captures the nuanced good and evil social debate of Anthony Burgess' futuristic 1962 novel.
One of the joys of St. Louis is the great variety of little theater groups here. The availability of presentations of edgy and thought provoking work like this adaptation makes the city a livelier place. Staged in a converted storefront on Washington Avenue downtown, the warehouse-as-studio sensibility of the venue heightens the experience of "A Clockwork Orange."
Fifteen-year-old Alex (Jared Nell) and his gang members, or "droogs," show no sense of morality or empathy as they prowl the city at night looking for victims to rob or rape, as entertainment. In between, there are trips to the "milk bar" for drug-laced drinks, flirtations with women and power-struggles within the gang. Ultimately, Alex's activities land him in jail, when disgruntled gang members abandon him to the cops. Alex is offered a chance for early release, if he undergoes a psychological conditioning treatment that takes away his ability to commit violent acts. Morally, he has not changed. The barbaric treatment makes him unable to act violently while also striping away his spiritual free will and all of pleasures. The play explores the limits of what society can do for the "common good" and the meaning of personal freedom and responsibility. The title "A Clockwork Orange" is perhaps a reference to what is lost when moral choice is taken away, the subject becomes like a mechanical fruit, not a human being.
Parts of Burgess' futuristic novel were a bit too prophetic, so many of the ironies of the negative dystopia are lost to modern eyes in the 1962 book and Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film based on the novel.
Extending the fears of the early sixties about increasingly rebellious youth, the novel shows a nightmarish future where roving gangs of amoral teenaged thugs indulged in violence as sport and entertainment, spoke their own slang language, and acted as free agents while living in their parents' cramped, modern apartments. The film showed that clean, modern high-rise apartments of 1971, which were expected to be the solution to tenement squalor, would become what they did in fact become - trash-filled, graffiti-covered, broken-down modern slums.
What has not changed is the story's exploration of free will and society's problem balancing good and evil. Adapted from the book, playwright Brad Baker follows the material closely, using familiar lines of dialog frequently.
The play is directed by Jason Cannon, who often puts great emphasis on the rough and violent nature of the material. The actors are battered about quite a bit or thrown to the floor n this very physical production. Cleverly, Cannon cast both women and men for Alex's gang, although originally it was all male, which adds a new layer to the play.
The set is simple, with a few props, but the action on stage is supplemented with video screens of various sizes embedded in the back wall of the stage. On the video screens, bits of film footage mirror or supplement the action on stage. At one point, footage of Abu Grabib and war footage from Iraq are included in the video clips, as Alex is re-conditioned to be repulsed by violence.
Except for Jared Nell in the lead role as Alex, each actor plays multiple parts. As Alex, Nell is vocal, physical and very emotional. He shows a level of sill and his acting is effective but a little more restraint in the first act would have sharpened the second act. However, overall, the second act was the stronger of the two, picking up the pace. The supporting cast is a bit uneven, and some of them look a bit under-rehearsed. However, standouts were Jon-Paul Grosser as Dim, and Jim Anthony and Andy Bloom, in various supporting roles.
The play is presented by HotCity Theater at the Art Loft, 1529 Washington. It runs through May 5. Call 314-289-4063.
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