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by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Kyra Harper

Pilot Group Theatre Company, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto

December 6-22, 2007

The main reason to see The Scene by American playwright Theresa Rebeck is the knockout performance of Ieva Lucs as its twentysomething femme fatale Clea.  Clea is fresh off the bus from Ohio and is desperate to make it into the New York entertainment scene.  Her speech, once restricted to Valley Girls but now widespread, seems to mark her as an idiot.  “Hello, well that’s like so like, whoa, like whatever,” is a typical remark, all filler no substance.  It’s the same with Clea.  She fills out a little black dress in all the right places but lacks any conscience or humanity.  Clea judges everyone else but won’t “allow” anyone to judge her.  Rebeck makes her the symbol of the empty narcissism she sees as the source of what is wrong with the US.  Lucs captures Clea perfectly right down to her faux-blasé inflection, constant posing and newly minted hauteur.

Clea comes into the lives of unemployed actor Charlie (Paul Eves) and his friend Lewis (Geoffrey Pounsett).  When she has the chance she immediate flings herself at Charlie and breaks up his marriage to television producer Stella (Ruth Marshall) who supports him.  The move is vital to Rebeck’s plot but makes little sense.  Since Clea’s goal is to sleep her way to the top, why look twice at a man everyone knows is a loser?  By the end Rebeck shifts gears awkwardly from bitter, very funny comedy to an attempt at tragedy that required more than the usual suspension of disbelief. 

The play’s best moments are the series of rants by Charlie and Marshall against the entertainment industry and the mindless populace who supports it.  Marshall is excellent as the offended wife and Pounsett as the not-so-innocent best friend.  Eves exudes far too much self-confidence to be the broken, bitter has-been he is supposed to be.  Nevertheless, director Kyra Harper draws strong, committed performance from all four although she allows the action to linger in comic mode longer than it should.  If it’s profundity you’re after, you won’t find it here, but if want to see a thorough trashing of American pop culture and its apotheosis in a dumb blonde from hell, look no further.    

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-12-11.

Photo: Paul Eves and Ieva Lucs.