By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
On the first day of kindergarten, Bari was approached by two girls, who, this being East Cooperville, were related to her. They asked if she wanted to play with them. She responded, “no”: she doesn’t play with cretins.
Flash forward several decades, Bari has followed her misanthropic inclinations and become a college professor of nihilism. That career though has been derailed because she never finished her dissertation about meaninglessness. Now she’s back in East Cooperville, about 100 miles from New York City, working in a fulfillment center, the only business in town. This only confirms her conviction about the senselessness of life.
And she’s working with Patty, one of those erstwhile playmates.
She fills the place, Patty said, with “smug gloom.”
That is until Bari has a seizure.
The Black Swamp Players are staging Deborah Zoe Laufer’s “Be Here Now,” directed by Nancy Wright, at their theater on Oak Street this weekend and next. Showtimes are: Friday, Dec. 6, and Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday Dec. 8 at 1:30 p.m. and continuing Dec. 13 and 14 at 7:30 and Dec. 15 at 1:30 p.m. Click for tickets.
Presented in the round, the play thrusts the audience into the claustrophobic world of East Cooperville, where everyone knows everyone else, and most are related. Uncle Jimmy owns the only viable business and the restaurant doesn’t ever seem to be open.
Bari (Cindy Bilby) has returned to finish writing her dissertation, nine years in the writing, and sell her mother’s house. But nobody wants to live in East Cooperville, especially Bari. The deadline looms. If she doesn’t finish it her hopes of returning to teaching in the city are dashed. She tells her coworkers that she writes she reports three paragraphs, and ends up erasing two.
Luanne (Kylie Schmehl), the bubbly teenager understands the problem. Writing about how nothing has meaning must be impossible because that includes the very dissertation itself.
Luanne and her grumpy aunt, Patty (Karen Noble) try to lift Bari’s spirits.
They try yoga, but she flees when they start intoning “ Om.” But not before hearing the off-stage instructor tell them to “be here now.”
Luanne wants her to find God.
Patty’s solution for Bari is to go out on a date, and have sex.
She hooks up a reluctant Bari with Mike (Brad Smith).
The astrological signs align — Patty puts great faith in astrology — and beside the pickings are pretty slim in a town where everyone is related.
It’s a great match, Luanne said, because Mike is like Bari really smart.
Bari is disinterested. Doesn’t help when Mike turns up riding an old bike and then starts pulling trash from the curb.
Then another seizure strikes. The lights flash, and all she wants to do is have sex with Mike. These seizures turn Bari into another person, someone exuberant to the point of being as obnoxious as she is.
She takes Mike home where they make love and then she sends him packing so she can write, She writes profusely, though what she scribbles makes little sense.
Go to a doctor, everyone urges her. But she wonders if this is a condition she wants cured, even if it kills her.
These are finely drawn characters, and the actors do them justice.
Noble is humorous as a truth teller who pierces through Bari’s pretensions. That feels like a defense against admitting to how constricted her own life is. She goes along to get along, seeing nothing wrong in sending gifts that buyers believe are made by artisans in Tibet, but are manufactured in China.
Patty scolds her niece for forgetting to snip “the made in China” tags from the goods, making her unwrap packages.
And Luanne does it. It’s fun she said like having all these gifts to unwrap.
When it’s revealed that the local doc is keeping Luanne and Patty medicated, Bari opines “your happiness is made in China.”
Brad Smith’s Mike is the most complex character. On the surface a man who treasures simplicity — he makes houses out of found objects and has been recognized as a genius for doing such. He struggles with this recognition especially given this occupation grew out of a tragedy.
He lives alone with his pet crow, a maimed creature he has rescued. But his encounter with Bari shows his empathy has limits.
What Patty, and Luanne, and Mike have in common is their belief that Bari should see a doctor about what’s causing the seizure which results in so much elation.
Is feeling more alive than she’s ever felt worth the risk of dying before her time?
“Be Here Now” engages the audience in the dilemma. People will all have a different view on what course Bari should take, but I doubt many will regret being there to see what she finally decides, and then wonder what lies ahead.
