Strollers Theatre's Cat's-Paw: "May I ask a question?"
Your Die Hards and Air Force Ones assume that in a hostage situation, the hostages are screwed unless they become heroes or get rescued by heroes. Neither seems likely in the case of Strollers Theatre's production of Cat’s Paw (running through Oct. 3 at the Bartell Theatre), which plays with the audience’s sympathies for both captors and captives.
Amid a DC car-bomb attack in which their group, Earth Now, has killed 11 senators, self-proclaimed "eco-warriors" Victor (Patrick O'Hara) and Cathy (Jessica Warpula) grapple with two captives whose fates they never really seem to control. TV reporter Jessica Lyons (Karen Saari) arrives tied to a handcart and gagged, and EPA official David Darling (Mark Huismann) has been in the terrorists' hands for a while, subsisting on rationed broth and cigarettes. Outside a vaguely defined hideout full of nerve gas and machine guns, the country is in a panicked lockdown, but it's the harried power battle among the cast of four that dominates the story.
Jessica's chief concern is keeping her edge as the steely, elegantly psychopathic Victor grants her an exclusive interview. David isn't particularly eager to condemn or stand by the water-safety decisions that provoked the group to hold him as a "war criminal"; and for all the danger he's in, he's chosen to both retreat inside himself (on an "imaginary travelogue" he writes in his mind with "phosphorescent chalk") and develop a childlike affection for his captors. In fact, the opening moments between Victor and David verge on tender, as David sheepishly prefaces everything he says with, "May I ask a question?"
After she's untied and provided with a tasteful skirt-suit, Jessica appears to forget the pistol in Victor's waistband, testing him with barbs and condescension. When he asks, "What's my best side?" she replies, "I'll keep looking for it." Cathy (despite the assault rifle slung over her own shoulder) never tops the effects of Jessica's off-the-cuff abrasion, even as she sputters through a drawn-out tantrum that, for a while, turns the play's suspense down a notch to just prolonged distress. Some of that's to do with the delivery, full of tedious pauses and tortured pronunciation that's sometimes a tad confusing: "On our first date, we blew up a bull... dozer." Some of it's that William Mastrosimone's play has a hard time wedging a wider discussion of environmental issues, terrorism, and media integrity into Cathy's monologue without sacrificing the urgency of the moment. Whether it's a case of hot-button theater or not, watching these four gnash at one another proves much more compelling than hearing about their convictions. The thrills in the middle of the play live side by side with a bit of tedium, but the final half-hour mostly clears up that complaint.
O'Hara reveals Victor's weaknesses with more charisma, preaching a "world revolution of planetary health" yet landing a dud as he tells the interview camera that his group's main demand is "clean water," then struggles to follow up. "I thought it was a coffee break," Jessica says, smirking at his awkward silence. In more than one key moment, Victor's tightly coiled and warlike speeches are clearly just a mask for hesitation.
It's hard to imagine anyone in the audience sympathizing entirely with one character or another in Cat's-Paw. More likely people will reluctantly warm up to fragments of each, unsure of not just who's in charge, but whom to root for and why.
