January 2012 Review by Joe Stead
Bad Seed
Rhoda Penmark is everything a perfect little girl should be: pretty, polite, intelligent, affectionate and shockingly tidy. Oh, did I mention she also has a cold blooded homicidal streak? And as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It is rare to see Maxwell Anderson's 1954 classic psycho thriller "The Bad Seed" played straight and without any attempt at camp. But that is exactly what Wheaton Drama is giving its audience...a well crafted, old fashioned horror yarn all dolled up in a pretty pink bow.
Director Jenni Dees obviously respects her material, which was adapted from an award winning novel by William March. Contemporary audiences whose shock senses have been dulled by the far more explicit horror films "The Exorcist" and "The Amityville Horror," to say nothing of the blood and gore slasher genre, may find this more subtle thriller quaint. But it still works, thanks to the sincere and generally honest approach taken by the current Wheaton cast. "The Bad Seed" has a charmingly homespun 1950's sitcom sensibility that is nicely evoked by Dees' and Ben Aylesworth's cozy peaches and cream living room set and by the sprightly music and sound design of Dave Amato that gradually adopts a more sinister and foreboding tone as the plot unravels.
You
see, Rhoda Penmark may just be the perfect little 8-year-old old
fashioned darling, but there is something almost abnormally mature
about her. That becomes a growing concern for her mother
Christine, and her fears prove to be well founded when a rival
classmate of Rhoda's shows up dead, and all evidence seems to point
to momma's little angel. The question of whether evil is
something genetically inherited or a product of environment no doubt
has fascinated generations of psychoanalysts and sociologists.
Playwright Maxwell Anderson hits us over the head a bit with the sci-fi pulp fiction that children who demonstrate sociopathic behavior may be some form of mutant subculture intent on infesting the innocence of our youth. That psychosis and the very literal acceptance of it as fact leads to a heavy handed melodramatic tone that could just as easily be tossed off as a parody. To her credit though, Dees keeps her actors thoroughly grounded in honesty and period accuracy. The play succeeds in creating a slightly off balance and creepy end desire.
Finding a child actor who can embody all the range and contradictions of good and bad in dear little Rhoda is a tall order, and young Hannah Klose fits the bill beautifully. She is a natural on stage, reacting in a refreshingly candid and unmannered way. Her explanations for her behavior all make perfect sense in her mind at any rate, which makes her character altogether real and frightening. Amy Royle hauntingly suffers not only Christine's horror at the monster she has created, but the sense that she herself may be partly responsible.
A couple of supporting characters (a landlady and amateur psychologist who conveniently studies Freud and the alcoholic mother of Rhoda's first young victim) come off less believably due to the writing. All in all though, this is a good production of a "Bad Seed". "Bad Seed" plays through February 19, 2012 at Wheaton Drama. Photo Credit: Ken Beach. For show tickets and information, please visit www.wheatondrama.org, or call 630-260-1820.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing since
1984. He served as founder, producer and Artistic Director of
Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland and Four Star Players
in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions have included "Life
With Father," "Deathtrap," "The Odd Couple,"
"The Miracle Worker," "Brighton Beach Memoirs,"
"You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and
"Godspell". He has also performed leading roles in
"Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin," "The
Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and most
recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for Waukegan
Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial Art from
Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has reviewed
everything from Broadway to community theatre and major regional
theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Goodspeed Opera
House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).