Carmichael (Christopher Walken) has been searching for his hand for forty-seven years in new Martin McDonagh play
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
236 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Through June 6 (March 25 performance reviewed)
Tickets: $61.50-$201.50
www.behandinginspokane.com
For forty-seven years, a craggy, cranky man named Carmichael (Christopher Walken) has been searching for the hand that was severed from his body when he was a teenager. His obsessive hunt has led him to a fleabag hotel and Troy (Anthony Mackie) and Marilyn (Zoe Kazan), two low-level drug dealers who claim they have the missing appendage. As the three of them attempt to reach some kind of an arrangement, the hotel receptionist, Mervyn (Sam Rockwell), inserts himself into the situation after hearing a gunshot, needing to share his very strange ideas about life with these three, potentially dangerous, strangers. Written by Martin McDonagh (THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE, THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE), A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE is a wry black comedy about a different kind of love and loss.
The four-character cast is outstanding, led by Walken’s sly, brooding racist who has lost all his morals in his endless, insane quest to get back what was taken from him; Walken is particularly funny during several phone conversations he has with his mother. Mackie (THE HURT LOCKER) and Kazan (THE EXPLODING GIRL) are solid as a none-too-smart couple who are in way over the heads, but the play is anchored by Rockwell, who gives a complex, nuanced performance as the hotel employee who had wanted so much more out of what has become his miserable little life; he’s especially effective during a long monologue addressed directly at the audience, in front of the ragged curtain, that, in other hands, could have been gimmicky and disastrous. A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE might fall a notch or two below his previous work, which also includes THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN and THE PILLOWMAN, but McDonagh still manages to pull off a cool ninety-minute tale that deserves more than the sound of one hand clapping.
Adapted from a short story by Junichirô Tanizaki, IREZUMI, the opening-night selection of the Japan Society’s “Mad, Bad . . . & Dangerous to Know” series, was one of the first Japanese exploitation films shot in color. Ayako Wakao stars as Otsuya, a pawnbroker’s daughter who aches to get away from her boring life. She convinces her father’s apprentice, the meek Shinsuke (Akio Hasegawa), to steal the shop’s money and run away with her, but the plan goes awry when she is sold into sexual slavery to Tokubei (Asao Uchida). Enraptured by her skin, Seikichi (Gaku Yamamoto) marks her for Tokubei by tattooing a huge spider across her back, promising it will bring her special power over men. Soon Otsuya is exacting bloody revenge with the help of the poor, misguided Shinsuke. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura, who also worked with Wakao on such films as MANJI and RED ANGEL (which screens April 1), IREZUMI is a dark, compelling tale that is not afraid to break out of genre conventions. The screening will be followed by the Dressed to Kill! party, where attendees are encouraged to come in costume as their favorite cinematic femme fatale.
A cult classic that spawned three sequels, Shunya Ito’s highly stylized SCORPION has everything a women-in-prison flick needs: sex, torture, rape, lesbianism, riots, sadistic male guards, shower scenes, gory violence, and lots and lots of unnecessary nudity. Set up by corrupt cop Sugimi (Isao Natsuyagi), to whom she gave her virginity, young and innocent Nami Matsushima (Meiko Kaji) is sent up the river, where she refuses to say anything about her case, leading to constant brutalization, including a harrowing hole-digging scene and some hog-tying. Afraid that she might eventually talk, Sugimi enlists another inmate, Katagiri (Rie Yokoyama), to kill her, but Matsu is not about to let anyone get in the way of her plan for revenge. Solid sexploitation all the way, SCORPION lays out much of the groundwork for Quentin Tartantino’s KILL BILL flicks; in fact, he even used the film’s theme song, “Urami-Bushi” (“Her Song of Vengeance”), which is sung by Kaji. Kaji went on to make several more FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION films with Ito and played Lady Snowblood in two movies directed by Toshiya Fujita, both of which are also part of the “Meiko Kaji: A Mad, Bad Unholy Easter Weekend” section of the Japan Society’s “Mad, Bad . . . & Dangerous to Know” film series.
