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N ovem ber 6 ,1 9 8 6 , TH E P H O E N IX , Page 11T h e a t e r s P l a y O u t A m e r i c aSpace Walk Dawdles In Effort To Tackle Human Condition ProblemsSwinging Bachelors Explore Their 'Rites' In Evocative Playworks ShowBY SUSAN SPANO WELLSIn the past few years Brooklyn has certainly not been hurting for avant gardedrama, what with BAM, BACA Downtown,and the experimental extravaganzas of TheBrooklyn Anchorage Theatre. Now, anothercompany this side of the bridge, The NewTheatre of Brooklyn has caught the experimental fever with the premiere production of %u201cSpace Walk.%u201dIn some ways, the most experimentalthing about %u201cSpace Walk%u201d is its inclusion inthis company%u2019s repertoire. With it, TNTseems to be testing its audience to see ifnon-realistic dram a that stresses scenic effect and music over character developmentand plot will fare as well as the more formally traditional TNT offerings in the past.The theater%u2019s approach, under the artisticdirection of Deborah Pope, has beennothing if not eclectic, but always intelligently so, and audiences have respondedn n s itiv e lv tn i t(hi Friday, October 31, however %u2014 when,due perhaps to the lure of extra-theatricalHalloween night activities, the crowd thatsaw %u201cSpace Walk%u201d was admittedly smallerthan usual %u2014 the response was mixed.Though there are moments of fine irony inMr. Mokler%u2019s script %u2014 for instant, when acardiopulmonary surgeon standing before arust-encrusted gasoline pump explains that%u201cthe heart is a simple organ,%u201d really just apump %u2014 the over-all effect is of opaqueness.This is due, not to the fact that the piecefails to answer the questions on the humancondition it raises, but that it simply doesn%u2019traise them sharply enough.In some sense, the first image in %u201cSpaceWalk%u201d is emblematic: A married couple,Jim and Dora, are in a c a r driving %u2014 wedon%u2019t know where. Then Jim , the play%u2019s central character, leaps onto the roof of theautomobile and shouts, %u201cI%u2019m in flight,%u201d as ifto say that he %u2014 presumably along with therest of modem man %u2014 is nowhere, wantingdesperately to go somewhere. When Jimdoes this, no one doubts his intensity; still,one just wishes the playwright would get al i t t l e h it m n r o C T w ifip T t%u2019 o t w o n m K adoesn%u2019t that the audience leaves the theatrein a state of emotional limbo.From the ca r trip of the opening scene,the plays proceeds to chart Jim %u2019s picaresqueBY ELIZABETH FOSTERBrooklyn Playworks opened its secondseason with %u201cRites of North AmericanHomo Sapiens in Captivity,%u201d a new play byDavid Ravel. His first production withBrooklyn Playworks was last year%u2019s %u201cTheTotally Amazing, Thoroughly Astonishing &Semi-Ridiculous Adventures of Emily,Queen of the B ears,%u201d a musical forchildren.%u201c Rites%u201d is about men and the humandesire to give meaning to our life crisesthrough ritual %u2014 in this case, m arriage.From its beer-drenched opening to its darkconclusion, the play suggests that oursearch for meaning is futile. Ritual servesas a bridge over what is essentiallymystery %u2014 the growth of a boy into a man,for example, his desire to join with awoman, the inevitable progression towardsdeath, and why all of this breeding, livingand dying is human destiny.Ravel%u2019s impressive script is well craftedand engrossing. The world he has created isfrighteningly plausible, a place where loveand passion can be reduced to sexualmechanics. A place where m arriage equalsthe end of fun and women are those strangeother beings who men can%u2019t live without butwho are essentially a drag. It%u2019s a familiartheme. Scores of movies are produced eachyear about how fun it is to be a guy with allthe guys, and what a drag women are, except for sex. Ravel%u2019s play about coming ofage as an American male is as substantialas Hollywood%u2019s is superficial.The play is set at a stag party, completewith booze in Herculean quantity andraucous talk about sex. Greg (RobTossberg) is getting m arried the next day,and his buddies have gathered for this Joey F o rtin i (Ed, le ft) and B arn ey D ineen (A rthur) in %u201c R ites.%u201d (C y n th ia H ill Photo)ritualistic last hurrah for the end of the freeand easy life.Ed (Joey Fortini) is the only one of theseven who has already crossed the m arriage threshold. He%u2019s the host, but notwithout wife Rhonda, who warns him overthe phone not to make a mess of the house.Although her character never appears onstage, her presence is felt as the archetypalnagging wife. The guys gang up on him,spray a few ritual bottles of beer around theliving room so that he is forced to give in tothe spirit of the evening, but he knows he%u2019sgot to account to Rhonda the next morning.Sam (Bill Schenker), the seventh guest atthe party, is not a member of this particular group of buddies. He has recentlyreturned from New Guinea, where he hasostensibly been studying primitive cultures.An inscrutable, self-possessed outsider, hebecomes the catalyst for the dram atic action and reaction that brings the stag partyto its disturbing conclusion.Under Sam %u2019s leadership, the party%u2019smeaning changes. He challenges the othercharacters to peel and expose layers of theritual they are engaged in, and when theydiscover the emptiness beneath theirdrunken celebration, they turn to him for anew ritual, even though his credentials andmotives are obscure and sinister.%u201cRites%u201d attempts to get to the bottom ofthe motivation of the average U.S. male.Ravel succeeds for the most part, but Ismell a rat in the play, the rat of women being m ere breeding instruments. He shoulddeal as substantially with the other half ofthe human race in his next work. The wivesand girlfriends of his characters have astory, too, and it m ay be bleak, subordinateContinued on Page 12adventures after he leaves his wife doingJane Fonda exercises on the living roomfloor, to see a lift-off at Cape Canaveral,Disney World, and Tucson, Arizona. Asplayed by Paul Zimet, Jim %u2019s an Americaneveryman, a cross between Dustin Hoffmanand Robert Duvall, at once exhilirated anddiminished by technology; for all thebooster rockets and manned shuttles ofNASA, for all the simulated technologicalwonders of Disney, he%u2019s still no closer to hisheart%u2019s desire.Once he rolls into Tucson, searching for a' illing station, he seems finally to approachihe object of his dream quest %u2014 a cowboywho teaches him to sling a gun, suits himup in boots and spurs, and sends him downthat long, lonesome road. It comes as a surprise when what he finds along the trail is ababy, abandoned in the tumbleweed, whichhe tries to bring home to Dora but loses in acase of beer.space and cowboys that makes Mokler%u2019splay seem more like sixties experimentaltheatre (say, early Sam Shephard) thanContinued on Page 12Paul Z im e t and A lb e rt O w e n s (le ft toright) in \Photo)____________