A strange king (Tony Torn) rules over his underground lair and servant Dead Bill (Will Dagger) in LATTER DAYS (photo by Christopher Genovese)
Ars Nova, Theater 511
511 West 54th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 11, $21-$35
212-352-3101
dutchkillstheater.com
arsnovanyc.com
Ben Beckley’s Latter Days is a strange and awkward piece of theater, more an exercise in character study than a fully fledged work. In an abandoned underground room that is part basement, part prison cell (designed by Carolyn Mraz), a king (Tony Torn) rules his lone minion, Dead Bill (Will Dagger), as they prepare for the end of days, believing an apocalypse will leave them in charge of the world. “When I walk the streets above, I see . . . faces turned from the sun,” Dead Bill says, continuing, “eyes heavy with grief unspoken. Hearts unraveling with secret sorrow. I want so much to speak with them, to tell them what’s to come.” The king responds, “You know you must not . . . You shall not . . . We forbid it!” The servant and the king, who speaks in Shakespearean ramblings and who uses a decrepit toilet bowl as his throne, go through the same tiresome rituals every day, involving street coffee, a thermos, an interminable countdown, and the official rubbing of the royal sores, although no skin-to-skin contact between ruler and subject is permitted. Dressed in a shabby makeshift robe that appropriately includes some tin foil around his neck (courtesy of costume designer Kate Fry), the potentate moves with mannered, silly precision, casting wide-eyed looks at the audience, as if trying to bring them under his lofty wings as well. Unfortunately, Latter Days, directed by Jess Chayes (I Will Look Forward to This Later, HOME/SICK), fails to reach any kind of sainthood; Dagger (Napoleon in Exile, The Convent of Pleasure) does an admirable job as the disciple, but Torn (Ubu Sings Ubu, The Oberon), the son of actors Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, is overly cartoony as the king. A presentation of the Dutch Kills Theater Company, the hour-long Latter Days is running in repertory with Jean Ann Douglass’s seventy-five-minute The Providence of Neighboring Bodies; the plays can be seen back-to-back for $30 with the code DKDUOBOTH. Just don’t tell them we sent you.