Prymate (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Prymate Trish Thomas Henley Prymate. By Mark Medoff. Directed by Edwin Sherin. Richard G. Fallon Theatre, Florida State University, Tallahassee. 2902 2004. The seventeenth-century philosopher and scientist René Descartes put forth the Aristotelian premise that humans are distinct and superior from the animal world by virtue of man's ability to reason. Mark Medoff's one-act play, Prymate, effectively collapses the Cartesian distinctions between animal and man, body and mind, emotion and reason. The play centers on a custody battle over Graham (André De Shields), an aging simian with emphysema. Scientist Esther Leeper (Phyllis Frelich) has spirited Graham into the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico in order to protect him from Avrum Belasco (Robert Walden), a fellow scientist who heads the lab at which Esther works and who plans on infecting Graham with the HIV virus to further his research. Avrum has tracked Esther and Graham to their primitive camp, bringing with him a sign language interpreter, Allison Alexkovsky-Wilcox (Heather Tom), to translate between him and Esther, who is deaf and mute, in order to convince her to bring Graham back. On the surface, Medoff's play appears to be about animal rights versus scientific research. Prymate, however, does more than merely rehearse familiar academic debates. As the play progresses it becomes evident that the characters' reasoned philosophical and political stances are actually predicated upon their emotionally based desires: lust, revenge, fear, and the quest for glory motivate both their seemingly rational arguments and the abhorrently illogical actions that they each take in the last third of the play—actions that the audience cannot help but compare to the ape's own sexually-motivated behavior. These comparisons become even more apparent as the sexual tension rises, and Avrum and Esther slowly reveal the personal history that provokes their power struggle over the ape and each other. André De Shields's portrayal of the ape, Graham, is the highlight of the production. Dressed in a khaki t-shirt, black shorts, black gloves, and boxing boots, De Shields lopes across the stage on his knuckles and the balls of his feet, the muscles in his face contorting into grimaces of rage, pain, and pleasure. De Shields's minimalist costume, designed by Colleen Musha, serves to blur the line further between human and ape. The production's major weakness lies in both its dramatic unevenness and its ambition. Toward the middle of the play, both Avrum and Esther establish why each of them should decide Graham's fate. Here the dialogue is sometimes clunky and frequently plunges into the didactic, causing the tension that has been building from the beginning of the play to abruptly fall away while Avrum and Esther rehearse tired arguments about scientific ethics and animal rights. Ostensibly, they are repeating these views in an attempt to convert Allison to their side of the debate, as they each know the other's opinion and the unlikelihood of it changing. This moment feels artificial and contrived. Rather than forwarding the action and the emotional heart of the play, it seems to be written in order to remind the audience of the different sides of an academic argument. Moments later, the play shifts into high dramatic gear as both Allison and Avrum divulge terrible secrets, the revelation of which precipitates acts of vengeance perpetrated by both Esther and Allison. Thus, the first half of the play falls flat in comparison with the dramatic events that follow. The number of topics Prymatetouches upon further dilutes the dramatic tension and muddies the effectiveness of the climactic ending. In addition to arguments about science and animal experimentation, the play raises issues pertaining to gender, disability, race, and politics that are occasionally handled less convincingly. Medoff's choice of setting, The Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, former home to the Anasazi, underscores humankind's own not-so-distant lineage from the animal world and undermines the romanticized myths we tell ourselves about where we came from and how far we have come from our ancestors. Both Graham and the humans no longer belong here; yet they are visual reminders of both ends of our lineage. The Anasazi fill in...