Opening Nights: The Cryptogram

Several hours after the final bows for David Mamet's tense, hour-long 1994 drama, my stomach is beginning to unclench. Kelly Kitchens directs the obsessive piece, set in 1959, about nervous young John (11-year-old Rowan Calvert), his jilted mom Donny (Emily Grogan), and their family friend Del (Richard Nguyen Sloniker). Without blows, cursing, drugs, or sex, The Cryptogram dispenses a sly nerve toxin—no small accomplishment in these desensitized times. Yet it's a hard play to admire, because the noxious tension is born of bait-and-switch. Mamet's hinted-at prospect of a chewy thriller crumbles into a postmodern vignette about failed communication and emotional frostbite.

Paul Bestock

Calvert as the boy caught in Mamet's language games.

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Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse

7312 W. Green Lake Ave. N.
Seattle, WA 98103

Category: Theaters

Region: Green Lake

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Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse, 7312 W. Green Lake Dr. N., 524-1300, seattlepublictheater.org. $15–$29. 7:30 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Oct. 23.

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More About

• David Mamet
• Emily Grogan
• Rowan Calvert
• The Cider House Rules

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John can't shut off his churning mind or accept easy answers from adults. Scheduled to go camping the next day with his dad (who never shows up), John's insomnia, OCD-like ruminations, and interrogations are driving Donny and Del to distraction. They speak classic, halting Mamet-ese, minus the f-bombs but full of unhearing "What?"s, fragmentary ellipses, and stilted pronouncements. (Del says of the absent father's knife, "It's a propitiation for the boy.") The tone and intentions seem muddled, which ratchets up our discomfort for only short-term gains. Is Del—who seems the most sympathetic to John's vulnerable sensibilities—a nice guy or a slimeball? Is Donny always an ice queen on the brink, or is she just victim of bad circumstances?

Grogan and Sloniker, who together evoked so much empathy in Book-It's The Cider House Rules, here seem encapsulated by Mamet's mean vision. In heart-sickening fashion, the adults' personal preoccupations blind them to the eccentric, haunted, and urgently attention-seeking John. As with glimpsing the details of any child abuse/neglect case, there's a sense of filth and failure as we leave the theater. Final score: Mamet 1, us 0.