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"Love and Anger", George F. Walker's harshly funny satire of liberals gone gonzo against conservative villainy, opens Dobama Theatre's 1995-96 season with a roar -- in a hailstorm of words, like a 90's Bernard Shaw on amphetamines. The political cartoons in the lobby and on the program cover are a tip-off to what is coming: a no-holds-barred pugilistic encounter between epic forces of Good and Evil, no shades of grey allowed.
Director Sue Ott Rowlands goes for action and pace, staging the play as a series of nose-to-nose confrontations. Her production is at its best when it is at full boil, its righteous fury spewing out hyperbole like molten lava, careening around in physical comedy. It is also supercharged by two juicy, epic-comic performances: Bernard Canepari as Petie Maxwell, a revolutionary attorney-on-the-warpath whose life-threatening stroke has loosened his screws and his social conscience; and Victoria Karnafel as his lunatic sidekick, a delusional avenging angel with enough attitude to blister paint on the wall.
Canepari's performance is rich, layered, machine-gun manic, and funny on the edge of pain, a wounded warrior who rages and schemes and staggers like a punchdrunk fighter. Karnafel's holy fool riffs are blissfully devoid of sentimentality. Pumping herself into a frenzy over "big beefy white guys" who want to rule the world, cowering from visions of Nazis in evening clothes ("dinner at the Reichstag!", she howls), she looks like Bette Midler with killer P.M.S.
Sonya Leslie anchors the Good Guy's team as Gail Jones, the wife of a railroaded client. At first as wary as Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party, her transformation to outraged co-conspirator is subtle and perfectly focused. Ann Kieger as Maxwell's long-suffering secretary is so stoic and straight she seems to have wandered in from another play, though her final scene is touching.
In this savage political cartoon of a script, the villains are drawn with little sympathy or complexity. Gary Jones as a corrupt tabloid publisher isn't given much more to do than grunt and snuffle like a wild boar stuffed into a tight suit. As Maxwell's treacherous former law partner, David Evett is a pompously elegant neoconservative candidate, the kind who looks good on a poster but has eyes as empty as a politician's promise.
The somewhat overwritten script has its bumps and sags, which the production doesn't manage to hide. The plot doesn't always make sense. The second act bogs down with too many speeches, a mock trial that runs out of gas, and an abrupt change of tone in the ending that doesn't quite succeed.
Yet there are pleasures aplenty to make up for the rough spots -- energetic performances, intelligent and often scabrously funny writing, and high production values, including a top-notch set by Ron Newell, a shabby warehouse basement complete with working conveyor belt. With the added attraction of new upholstered seats with more leg room, thanks to a summer facility rehab, the Dobama opening night audience had much to appreciate.
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