Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Mounting John Patrick Shanley’s gritty romance between a pair of broken down lost souls is akin to inviting all the neighbors to watch a synchronized high-dive in an aboveground pool. It’s risky. Given that most actors and theatergoers are already familiar with the scenes if not the full show, there’s a natural tendency to overlook a serious production—even if it deserves attention.
The morbid fascination of seeing an unlikely courtship between a borderline homicidal young man and a deeply resentful, self-loathing single mom continues to keep this twenty-eight year old play a perennial favorite but the challenge then is to make it fresh and utterly believable. In this two-hander the actors are everything. They either sell it or kill it. There is little in between.
Happily, in the case of the Crown City Theatre in NoHo, the actors don’t just sell it—they own it. This is one of those scene-intensive productions that any self-respecting acting coach should encourage their students to take note in lieu of class. General audiences won’t want to miss this moody, serrated-edged love story either sensually enhanced by the lithe Juliet Landau and the blistering machismo of Matthew J. Williamson.
Visually, the pair is stunning. Here’s a couple you actually want to see in bed. The elegant Landau, a former professional ballerina, oozes sex even when loudly munching on a pretzel. Exposing her flat, vulnerable underbelly (figuratively and literally) she pivots with her hips around Williamson’s defensive posturing and balled up bloody fists. She is all seduction. He meets her advances with suspicion and violence. It is an attraction of opposites and sizzling synchronicity as they reveal their personal wounds, scars and demons in a dingy dive bar.
For those unfamiliar (or have only seen snippets of the play), Shanley’s deliberate but subtle heightening of this volatile relationship keeps those who already know how it will end still satisfyingly mesmerizing. It’s more of a question exactly to what bad end of the road these two will inevitably reach and although I personally have never been a fan of the runs-out-of-gas conclusion, it is so refreshingly nonchalant under John McNaughton’s direction that it leaves you wanting more from this sordid duo. Shanley’s abrupt ending is to blame—not these actors.
This speaks to the hair-raising chemistry between Landau and Williamson more than the spiky characters themselves. It’s a caustic mating dance, brutal, unflinching and antagonistic, something like seeing an armadillo and porcupine go at it. It’s self-destructive, violent and yet strangely the most natural convergence of anger and guilt-ridden issues to find a home within, which is after all what they seek even if you wouldn’t want to be the one living next door. This isn’t The Days of Wine and Roses but The Days of Beer and Blood. How it will ultimately work out is the mystery Shanley leaves us but it is a romance of shared pain and resistance. Love hurts but this production makes it hurt so good.
John McNaughton smartly plays with deep wells of silence that have the potential to dampen the energy, but Landau and Williamson feed the pauses with feeling and physical terseness. It’s a sparring match between two equally matched individuals, but McNaughton restrains from a lot of fussy footwork and unmotivated action. Whenever they do move around each other, it’s both tentative and dynamic, compressed in a simple but pleasing navy toned set by Keiko Moreno.
Whether you’ve seen “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” before or this is your first opportunity, Crown City does a bang-up revival for this bang-up love story. Hopefully, the show will extend. It deserves a setting aside of preconceptions and giving it it’s full due as if for the very first time.
“Danny and the deep Blue Sea”
Runs through Dec 18
11031 Camarillo Street
North Hollywood, CA 91602
Fri & Sat @ 8pm
Sundays @ 7pm
www.crowncitytheatre.com