I Stand Before You Naked
A drama featuring ten monologues about love, pain, sorrow, heartache, and loneliness, written by Joyce Carol Oates, is now playing at the Complex in Hollywood.
The evening begins with ten women standing in place on stage, repeating the words, "I stand before you naked," as a way of saying, "I'm giving you my soul, my life, my body, my everything. Please give me yours and love me back."
Cecilia Specht, Layla Alexander, and Krysten Klein are outstanding. Unlike the rest of the ensemble, these actresses each create a real character rather than trying too hard to entertain. After enduring the first three over-acted monologues, Layla Alexander's mesmerizing performance nudges us with a hope that the show will continue to be as professional as she is.
Alexander plays a woman who is having difficulties with eating disorders. She is so controlling of what goes into her body, she holds an orange and speaks of its sweet nectar while she waits for the passage of exactly 15 minutes before she will allow herself to put one section of it into her mouth. She cradles the fruit in her hands as it stalks her taste buds. Hell. After a few minutes into the monologue, we want to grab it out of her hands and eat it.
Cecilia Specht shines as a socialite who craves power so intensely that the thought of murdering another brings her to orgasm.
Finally, Krysten Klein plays a coquette who works as a stripper. She dreams of falling in love, but the man she trusts wants only to lure her to her death. The scantily clad pole dancer tells us the story of how it all happened, while her murderer stands on an elevated platform behind her. They reenact the brutal scene in perfectly choreographed unison, never actually touching one another. Klein forces our eyes upon her as she tells the story just as creatively as the author wrote it.
The remainder of the evening is hit or miss, but--to be fair--mostly hit.
First-time director Eddie Kehler somehow understands women and their emotional needs.
Kathi O'Donohue lights the stage in a somber display of well-thought-out creativity. Meanwhile, Gary Chambers (sound designer) is let down by an ill-fated love affair between the sound equipment and death while an intervening orgasm of crackling diminishes any and all enjoyment of his work.
In the production reviewed, there was not even one laugh from the audience. Rarely do you see a drama that has got no jokes. Then again, if you ask a woman, there's nothing funny about needing to be loved.
On a grading scale – B
Written by Joyce Carol Oates
Directed by Eddie Kehler
Produced by Layla Alexander and Krysten Klein
Photos by Paula and Marc Kayne
The Complex - East Theatre, 6468 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood 90038
July 11th - August 17th; Fri. and Sat. at 8:00 p.m., Sun. at 6:30 p.m.