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The Train Play

by Liz Duffy
SF Weekly Review October 23, 2002 (Michael Scott Moore)

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Too much metaphysics and not enough drama, but music and humor save it
from an ugly wreck
BY MICHAEL SCOTT MOORE

Liz Duffy Adams was so full of ideas for
The Train Play, apparently, that she
couldn't keep the title down to a simple
phrase. The show is really called The
Train Play or the Reckless Ruthless
Brutal Charge of It, and "train play"
echoes Bob Dylan's churning, bluesy
"Train Song" ("Don't say I never warned
you, baby/ When your train gets lost").
Characters sit in old, green, vinyl seats,
arranged in a curving row to suggest a
train going 'round a bend. Passengers
include a boozy old sophisticate with a
British accent who wants to smoke on the
train and turns out to be the Earth
Goddess, Gaia; a gal who thinks she's a
comic-book character named Leopard
Girl; a shy but horny physicist who
wonders out loud about the nature of
reality; and an Irishman pursued by angels
("Gabriel Angelfood"). The weight of
ideas loaded onto this train would be enough to derail it if the acting weren't
so good -- Linda Jones breathes life into the physicist, Gwyneth Richards is
outstanding as Gaia, and three actors (Richard Bolster, Michael Ferris
Gibson, and David Koppel) do hilarious work as idealistic Russian brothers
on a mission of peace in honor of their "St. Chekhov" -- especially when they
break into song. Like the show across the hall at Exit Stage Left (see next
review), the playwright indulges in too much mythological metaphysics and
not enough drama, but music and humor save it from an ugly wreck.

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