Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, the holy trinity of modern youth culture, are the objects of satire in Eric Bogosian's pitiless survey of the twisted American male psyche. Mercifully, it's not Bogosian's style to moralise, but simply to drink deep the intoxicating draughts of his wayward characters' excesses. His one-man play is, therefore, a string of grubby carnal encounters, a series of quick chemical fixes, or a collection of rowdy riffs from a rock album of greatest hits.
The characters roll out in a ding-dong procession of successes and failures - a pattern epitomised by the beggar and rock star who open proceedings. The beggar is an aggressive street prophet, as well as a dismal social casualty. Meanwhile, the rock star is a smug, platinum-disc success-story - congratulating himself for beating drug addiction, but seem-ingly oblivious to the failure his addiction implies. In their wake, comes a cocky urban cowboy who boasts of bedding any woman he wants. Then there's a sleazeball best man who narrates a catastrophic stag night, plus a scum-bag executive whose commitment to Sixties idealism simply means cheating on his wife. In all, it's a moral merry-go-round of greedy, voracious, shallow, pig-headed, egotists wallowing in a mire of instant gratification and "me, me, me".
Danny Richman's breathless performance under John McSpadyen's in-yer-face direction allows little pause for thought. In keeping with Bogosian's tone, both actor and director rip through the text, leaving the cautionary message to emerge like a head-splitting hangover. However, this doesn't make Richman crude or histrionic, and his American accents are as finely tuned as his gestures are tailored. If it sounds as exhausting and demoralising as a three-day amphetamine bender, that's part of the point: the appetite for these characters sickens and dies through excess of them. But, it's also only 75 minutes long and Richman's vision of Bogosian's rogues' gallery of wastrels is a thorough case study of a dangerously schizoid society.
Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll
