Off Broadway Review:
Oh, Hell
Hell isn't much fun in
"Oh, Hell," the double bill that opens the Lincoln Center Theater's season at the Mitzi Newhouse
Theater. David Mamet's contribution is intermittently amusing but below par for him, and the Shel
Silverstein opus is silly and tedious.
The Silverstein piece, "The Devil and Billy Markham," is a shaggy-dog narrative poem about a
down-and-out Nashville songwriter who dices with the devil and outwits him. Steeped in scatology
and bawdy hippie barroom humor, the 50-minute piece aims at Rabelasian effects but mainly induces
Shel shock before it arrives at the high point, a funny list song about a celebrity-packed wedding
reception in hell.
It is performed with gravelly voiced gusto (and an impressive memory) by rock singer Dennis
Locorriere. Authors whose more fully developed plays have been rejected by Lincoln Center must be
wondering at the showcasing given to this juvenilia by Mamet's screenwriting pard.
Mamet is wrigint in a whimsical vein in "Bobby Gould in Hell," in which an ill-tempered devil
upbraids a recently deceased candidate for the eternal flames in an anteroom of Hades, designed as a
reading room in an old money private club ('Is A.R. Gurney writing a play about lowlife Chicago
hustlers')
The sarcastic mod Lucifer, irritated because his fishing trip was interrupted, browbeats the anguuished
defendant, a smoothie who habitually seduced and abandoned women. There's a conflict to be sure
and some funny comedy of exasperation from the impatient interrogating devil who's played with
sharp edges by W.H. Macy.
The devil and his grovelling aide produce a young woman victim on the sinner, and her exchanges
with the devil are laughworthy. But Mamet doesn't bother much with logical progression or
motivation. It's purely verbal comedy, often funny because he's such a gifted dialog writer but
unsatisfying as a dramatic event.
Treat Williams does what the part calls for as the initially defensive, eventually contrite malefactor,
and Felicity Huffman's indignant snippiness is enjoyable. But "Oh, Hell" is minor-league stuff.
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