There are only five characters in "Pig Tails," a senior thesis production by David Brundige '04 at the Berlind Theatre in the McCarter Theatre Center. But the setting is so prominent among them, it might as well be a sixth. That setting would be a dead-end town in New Jersey where jobs are scarce and everybody is just a little too involved in everybody else's business. This is a town where one character can recollect running the city perimeter in 12 minutes as a boy and the best another can muster in its defense is, "Hey! We have an oldies station!" Most of these characters want to transcend their origins and build better lives for themselves, but don't quite know how to accomplish this.
Herein lies only one of the darker themes of the play. Fliers across campus have advertised the show as "a story about sex and pigs." Both do, indeed, figure prominently in the play, and it has plenty of belly laugh-inducing moments, but the play also has heavier elements not suggested by its advertising.
The longest shadow in "Pig Tails" is cast by one Steve, who dreamed of introducing big changes before finally leaving town himself. For Trap (Charles Hewson '04), Steve's departure has been a major blow: without the older man's guidance, he lacks direction and spends his days helping spruce up pigs for pageants. He also has ample time to offer big-brotherly advice to a newcomer, his cousin Barney (Benjamin Mains '06)—in fact, a little too much advice for the 17-year-old's liking. Rebellious yet naïve, Barney becomes a pawn in the schemes of Gabe (John Doherty '06), a Wal-Mart employee nursing a serious grudge. Gabe endured Trap's bullying throughout their childhoods and watched Trap and Steve's friendship with jealousy; now, he is willing to use anyone to exact his revenge, including not only Barney, but also his own sister, Philipa (Barbara Luse '04). Gabe intends to use Philipa's infamous promiscuity as a weapon, but the sullen high-school dropout has grudges of her own. The last one mixed up in this mess is Trap's ex-girlfriend Lucy (Kimberly Seeher-man '06), a student at the local community college. Though more mature emotionally than the other characters, Lucy still finds Trap's selfishness can wound her.
"Pig Tails" relies more on relationships between characters than on plot, and the talented cast does an excellent job bringing these dynamics to life. For instance, a shamelessly gleeful Gabe and a mortified Barney become perfect foils for one another during a scene in which Gabe catches the teenager about to, er, pleasure himself. And in their scenes together, Hewson's Trap projects just enough goofy charm and Seeherman's Lucy just enough vulnerability to make this relationship believable.
It should come as no surprise that the cast seems to inhabit their roles so well, given that Brundige wrote the play with several actors already in mind to play characters. Brundige envisioned Hewson as Trap; Hewson adopts the character's penchant for platitudes and vague unfulfilled ambitions with seeming ease.
Meanwhile, John Doherty's Gabe has got to be one of the most loathsome characters to grace Princeton's stages for quite some time, and I mean that as a compliment. Brundige claims "Othello" as a major inspiration, and the mischief-making Gabe bears more than a passing resemblance to Shakespeare's Iago. His voice is so steeped in sarcasm that his most commonplace remarks emerge mangled by malice.
As Philipa, a nymphomaniac—or "the nympho!", as Barney repeats in awestruck tones — Barbara Luse slouches, pouts and strolls along the stage with her lower body thrust aggressively forward. At first, the character veers perilously close to stereotype, but the second act gives Luse more opportunity to show off her theatrical muscle.
Jeremy C. Doucette's set contributes to the production's sense of entrapment with its backdrop of bleak winter woodland and wire fence. Miniature buildings dangling from the ceiling hem the characters in as they pace restlessly between the confines of a stage floor painted with an aerial view of their small town.
Commendable, too, are the costumes by Frederica Nascimento. Gabe's blue Wal-Mart vest with its smiley-face pins and an enormous "How may I help you?" slogan on the back adds a note of sneering irony, and the stars-and-stripes tie he occasionally wears is another nice touch.
Even if their close confinement with one another drives these characters crazy, it makes for quite an evening's entertainment.
"I've got lots of tales from this town. You probably don't want to hear most of them," Philipa says at one point.
Ah, but we do.
"Pig Tails" opened last weekend and will play March 10-12 at 8:00 p.m. in the Berlind Theatre in the McCarter Theatre Center.
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