A Preposterous Pursuit
The title of John Guare's play Landscape of the Body begs the question, "What do these characters, or their bodies, look like?" The answer is: "As much as you would expect."
Sherie Rene Scott plays Rosalie, a provocative nightclub entertainer who appears here in her afterlife. An admirable singer, Ms. Scott is the perfect chanteuse, but more importantly she brings a natural carefree quality to the character. Lili Taylor plays her dumbfounded sister Betty, who's predeceased by her adolescent son Bert, played so rapturously by Stephen Scott Scarpulla that one would wish the character possessed a better and kinder nature. Paul Sparks appears as a Dick Tracy-like detective hell bent on discovering the mystery behind Betty's decapitated, deceased son.
Mystery? Secret? Not really. The answer to these questions is as obvious as the nightly news and delivered with equal sensationalism. The play suffers from a progression of disconnected, disjointed scenes all of which reveal a general loss of moral purpose. In this respect, the characters of Landscape (from 1977 and now, here, in its third Off-Broadway production) look a lot like the characters of Six Degrees of Separation and any number of plays by John Guare, the author to whom the Signature Theatre has devoted this year's season.
Ironically or not, Landscape may leave one breathless for some essential meaning. To listen to Betty, it could be found in any number of ways-in a truly loving family; or in being in the movies; or in marrying the rich Southerner who lands out of nowhere at the doorstep of her Christopher Street apartment. But in all of the ways she goes about it, the pursuit is obviously preposterous.