
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990                   TAG: 9006020374
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLACK HUMOR IS THE STAR OF ACTING CO. PLAY

Roanoke-area theater groups have not been lacking in imagination when it involves finding a stage for their productions. Old movie theaters, churches, motel chains and picturesque hotels have provided stages for enterprising theater organizations.

But the Acting Company and the Iroquois nightclub on Salem Avenue provide a new and interesting partnership.

Dinner theater around these parts is defunct. But theatergoers who attend the Acting Company's production of "Baby with the Bath Water" can enjoy a burger and a beer in this facility normally reserved for rock, blues and New Wave music.

Don't expect the standard bedroom farces common to dinner theaters, however. The Acting Company is nothing if not adventurous. And the current production is a horrifyingly funny show from Christopher Durang that may offend mainstream audiences with its language and vigorously black sense of humor.

However, no matter how blithely outrageous it sets out to be, there's still a disturbing message about how modern parents mess up their children.

John (Joe Gardner) and Helen (Anne D. Mariani) are two of the most neurotic parents that could possibly invade any child's nightmare. They're incapable of deciding even their child's gender. John is slugging down Quaaludes and Nyquil to get some rest, and Helen can't make decisions after her morning cocktail.

Gardner is steady as the whacked-out dad, but Mariani gives the play its off-kilter drive as the completely out-of-control mother. Clearly, these yuppies need a take-charge person, and a Nanny from Hell pops up who slams the baby around and immediately seduces John. She's played by Joan Long with a frightening, Southern cheerfulness. Other cast members include Terry Henry as the grown-up child with a severe identity problem, Wendy Myers as an idiotic mother who becomes involved with John and Helen, and Geri Danger (a stage name) as a flaky teacher.

This is an unabashedly outrageous show that often builds its humor on shock-value, but it carries a very real message about how self-absorbed parents can hurt their children.

Director Miriam Frazier has staged it crisply, though the second act lacks the momentum of the first.

"Baby with the Bath Water" plays through June 9. Admission is $5.

by CNB