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Theatre 2K, April 2004...


THE INTERNATIONALIST
anne washburn's unsettling comedy is playwrights collective 13p's first offering
at 45 bleecker/soho

Anne Washburn is fast emerging as one of New York's most engagingly versatile playwrights of this young century. Chameleon-like in the form, style and structure of her plays, one factor that remains consistent throughout Washburn's work is her strong, vibrant use of language.

By turns playful, sparring, baffling and challenging, Washburn takes obvious delight in both the turn of a phrase and in turning phrases against one another and on their heads.

Plus, in "The Internationalist," Washburn and her linguistically nimble cast give us an entire new language to confront, a kind of slippery-Slavic tongue that both draws us into the intrigue of this unnamed foreign setting and distances us through our inability to understand a substantial chunk of what is going on.

This distance is especially important as we follow Mark Shanahan's Lowell -- a protypical, gregariously clueless American -- as he attempts to navigate both the internecine squabbles and alliances of the "foreign office" and the mystery cuisine, libations and customs of a taciturn foreign culture.

The play's elusiveness congeals slowly into a stifling haze that drifts about Lowell and his mysterious, increasingly sinister business colleagues. The effect for both Lowell and audience is cumulatively unsettling, like standing on unstable ground that is constantly shifting, sliding slowly towards some unstoppable catastrophe.

In addition to Shanahan, standouts in director Ken Rus Schmoll's sharp cast include Kristen Kosmas' sinuous Irene and Heidi Schreck's inscrutable Sara. Sue Rees' cooly economical set design makes optimal use of 45 Below's special cavernous space.

--Brook Stowe

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