Zak Berkman's play, Beauty on the Vine, begins as a diatribe on talk-radio cults, quickly morphs into a whodunit and finishes up as a feminist call-to-arms, with plenty of discussion en route on the folly of judging books by their covers. And damned if it doesn't do all this with such seamless guile that we remain as unaware of the transitions, as does the uncomprehending assassin whose refusal to look beneath the veneer of public images sets the plot in motion.
The image, in this case, is that of Lauren Chickerling, poster girl ( literally - we see the posters as we enter the theater ) for conservative Republicans ever since a Christmas photo-op with then-President Reagan. Now 24 years old, she hosts her own radio show, proclaiming the party line to adoring teenage girls ("my chicklets" ) under the protective eye of her father/manager. But this right-wing Barbie has a secret agenda, known only to her husband - a music journalist just multiethnic enough to disturb her more extreme followers. After her murder by a hostile stalker, however, her plan begins to surface in the wake of the discovery that several young women have had themselves surgically altered into eerily accurate facsimiles of their idol.
Beauty on the Vine is a play lending itself to many interpretations: Is Lauren's ambition rooted in altruism or egotism? If her career had not been curtailed untimely, would her celebrity have transformed her into a charismatic leader or a power-hungry tyrant-and to whom? Or does her manifesto simply reflect the aspirations of adolescent females everywhere? And what about the two men who love her, confronted by the promise of an artificial resurrection? Is their response selfish, blasphemous or only a reflection of any person grieving a sudden loss? What's in a name, anyway-or a face?
Berkman's mosaic disclosure takes us both backward and forward in time from the moment that Lauren meets Sweet, the man who will become her confidant, her mentor and, ultimately, her redeemer. In less adept hands, such a decision could muddy the arc of the story inexorably, but Berkman cares more about argumentative coherence than narrative dexterity. So does Jason Kae, whose direction of this BackStage Theater Company production ascertains that we never lose our chronological bearings. Brenda Barrie turns in a marathon performance as the always-distinct three Laurens, ably supported by Gregory Isaac ( looking very Mediterranean ) and a cast of storefront-circuit stalwarts who inhabit their allegorical characters with serenely unswerving conviction.
