THE FACE OF ANOTHER: Not quite a review of That Face, playing at the Studio Theater through March 14. (YOU CAN STILL SEE “IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER,” PEOPLE. IT’S PLAYING THROUGH MARCH 7. GO SEE IT NOW.) This is just a slightly scrubbed version of what I sent Ratty after I saw the play….

Audience comments afterward included “intense” and “interesting,” so… yeah! It really was not what I was expecting. It’s the debut of a like 19-y.o. British playwright, and it opens with two prep-school girls hazing another one. Things spiral out of hand and the girls end up seriously injuring the haze-ee, landing her in the hospital. I’d actually thought, going in, that that incident was the focus of the play–I thought the “face” in the title referred at least in part to the girl’s injuries. And honestly… I wish it had been that, since the two scenes with the haze-ee are incredibly brutal, and I was left wanting to know so much more about her–how she ended up in that position, how she could possibly manage to go on after being really thoroughly dehumanized in both of her scenes (both in the hazing and in the hospital).

But instead the play turns out to be about this wildly [messed]-up family–like, Southern gothic but set in ASBO-Tesco-yobbo Britain (and in fact, the crazy incestuous drunken mother’s actress had played in both THE GLASS MENAGERIE and SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER–I bet I can guess which roles!). The daughter of the family is one of the hazers, is how it connects to the opening scene, and because the school threatens to kick her out, her divorced-and-remarried father flies in from Hong Kong to deal with them, setting in motion all the other events. And… yeah, the complete awfulness of the family was intense to watch (and funny–this is a REALLY harsh black comedy), but I still… wanted to know more about the first girl.

The very disturbing thing is that some of the scenes/dialogue reminded me of one of the worst nightmares I’ve ever had, which made it especially hilarious when the father has the great line, “This scene has a nightmarish quality I don’t like!”

Anyway, I was very shaken-up when it ended (abruptly), in large part because of that resemblance to my nightmare, but ultimately I don’t know that it’s more than a really grim family-gothic comedy. There’s a kind of demi-theme of irrevocable acts, of repentance that comes too late to repair the damage, which of course I liked.