By: Darryl Reilly
“I look like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown” says a bandaged 19-year-old Black gay female college student who has just had a tumor removed from her nose in author Gracie Gardner’s formulaic and unsatisfying play, I’m Revolting. Set during one day in the waiting room of a Yelp three-star rated Manhattan outpatient skin cancer clinic, which we’re told is not Sloane Kettering, Ms. Garde gives us an adequate medical procedural multi-character study that just about sustains its 90-minute length. A tacked-on glum surprise twist ending compounds the pervading flatness.
Gardener’s often jokey dialogue is polished, her studied stock cross section characters are defined, and her plotting flows. Though technically adept, I’m Revolting is a synthetic theatrical take on the trusty “disease of the week” genre, long popular on episodic television since the days of Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and Marcus Welby, M.D. There are conflicts, revelations and shaky resolutions. Gardner gives her familiar premise a facile treatment which tritely plays out.
Besides the young woman with the nose tumor and her harried medical proxy Morgan Stanley executive sister, there’s a philosophical gruff 70-year-old man with cancer in his neck, a middle-aged schoolteacher with a tumor in her eye in a strained marriage whose husband is distant, and a young man who has a melanoma on his nipple with a New Age mother offering comically dubious holistic advice. Attending to them is a veteran empathetic female doctor and an amiable young male doctor just starting out.
The actors shine in their archetypal roles. Alicia Pilgrim is soulful and animated as the college student. Magentic Gabby Beans makes an impact as her forceful sister. Peter Gerety revels in the old man’s wiliness. Patrick Vaill is marvelously spacy as the free-spirited young man with the nipple growth. Laura Esterman offers a grand display of character acting as his out-there mother, especially when she sets up and plays her musical bowls. Emily Cass McDonnell is wistfully lovely as the schoolteacher with the eye tumor. Glenn Fitzgerald is touching as her mentally unraveling husband. As the doctors, Patrice Johnson Chevannes and Bartley Booz, each exhibit depth and humor.
Director Knud Adams calibrates the performances and achieves pace, momentum and visual interest. Scenic designer Marsha Ginsberg’s realistic waiting room is a perfect landscape. Kate McGee’s suitably bright lighting design artfully dims to connote the passage of time. Sound designer Bray Poor efforts are subtle. The characters are well-realized by Enver Chakartash’s individualized everyday costume design.
This Atlantic Theater Company world-premiere production of I’m Revolting reveals it to be a skillful and minor entertainment.
I’m Revolting (through October 16th, 2022)
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater, 336 West 20th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, visit www.atlantictheater.org
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission