goestoshow

Twisted Things was just plain strange. The description in the guide involved a woman and her crack-addict cat, which was definitely intriguing. I was expecting more zany and less angst, though. The premise is that there’s a woman who lives with her deranged, jealous, and lame (literally) cat. She’s more or less permanently depressed due to the death of her boyfriend quite a while back (he died at a rave by drowning after taking ecstasy). She goes out one night and meets a guy — identified primarily by the statement: “Pump. 28. Scar.” — and of course her cat gets jealous. Making the cat, and pump for that matter, even more jealous is the fact that she’s also starting to spend time with the unloved dog next door.

Basically, nobody ends this play really happy. Let’s just say the cat does something really nasty, Pump gets what he wants and then leaves, and the end is even more depressing than the beginning. But that’s all well and good for the type of play it is. If you’re in the mood for that, it’s great.

What could potentially kill it (at least for me), is the crows (yes, even more anthropomorphism) who act as chorus. Unfortunately, their random jumping around stage and throwing of a step ladder and bad-Poe-style rantings make things a bit more juvenile than they really need to be. The rest of it mitigates the crows, but I’m not sure it’s really good enough to rise above it.