Alex (Christopher Sutton, right) has an indecent proposal for Felicia (McKenna Harrington).
Rules of Desire is the first new play by William Mastrosimone (Extremities) to premiere in New York in some time. And this 90-minute, three-character piece, directed by William Roudebush, is a head-scratcher: Whatever points it makes get muddled by ambiguous character development, a far-fetched setup and one long scene that gives new meaning to “toxic masculinity.”
The play begins with Matt, a young man in Navy attire, helping his girlfriend Felicia out of the duffel bag in which she’s stowed away. He’s stationed on an aircraft carrier, and instead of retiring to his assigned berth at night, he’s going to live with her secretly in an airlock. “God, I love you,” he tells her, and it soon becomes clear they took this risk rather than be separated.
CPO Alex Stone (Sutton, right) intimidates his underling Matt Cotton (Tristan Biber) in Rules of Desire. Photographs by Russ Rowland.
So it looks like a tale of runaway passion. Well, that can make for good drama, whether it’s romantic, like Romeo and Juliet, or twisted, like Fool for Love. Except…there isn’t any runaway passion. Matt’s the only one of the two who’s in love, and Felicia offers him no affection, only complaints about the bathroomless, windowless quarters in which she’ll be confined. “We’re together. Isn’t that what matters?” he says, to which she replies: “No.” And that’s that; end of scene.
In the next scene, chief petty officer Alex walks in on Matt and Felicia kissing and demands sex from her in exchange for not ratting them out. Threatened with dishonorable discharge and court martial, Matt consents to let Alex “have” her during Matt’s 12-hour work shifts. And that leads to a scene—between Alex and Felicia—that takes up more than half the play’s running time.
So the play isn’t about Matt and Felicia after all. It’s Alex who brings up the titular “rules of desire” (the English translation of “kama sutra”). It’s Alex who’s reptilian, like the creature in the show’s logo. It’s from Alex, and his interaction with Felicia, that the play explores…hmm, it is a mystery what this play is trying to say about love, lust, heartbreak, perseverance, rectitude, all of the above? None of the above? Perhaps the main idea has something to do with how these two men, in very different ways, go overboard (no pun intended) with their desire, yet Felicia, the supposedly neediest of them all, comes though it self-actualized. Or how a man of great intellectual and professional promise can be ruined by watching too much porn.
An intense scene with Alex (Sutton) and Felicia (Harrington) dominates the play.
Alex has some disgusting ideas about sex, ones that generally involve debasing a woman—or knocking her out completely with a roofie. He isn’t somebody you love to hate. He’s just somebody you hate listening to, because his dialogue is a nonstop barrage of vulgar euphemisms for genitalia and arousal. His mind is so addled by a surfeit of porn, Viagra and rage that it physiologically affects him. And his supposedly tragic backstory, revealed late in that deeply unpleasant scene, doesn’t redeem him, in (large) part because it is told without much emotion but with the same crude language he’s been using all along.
Christopher Sutton is excellent in this despicable role, tearing into Alex’s obnoxious rapid-fire harangues and his physical torment with chilling authenticity. His performance has all the intensity that’s lacking in his costars. As Matt and Felicia, off-Broadway newbies Tristan Biber and McKenna Harrington fail to create real personalities for their characters. This is partly the fault of the script, which draws Felicia inconsistently and reveals nothing about Matt other than that his father is a (disapproving) naval officer. But Biber’s demeanor and line delivery never quite convey the ardor that’s expressed in Matt’s many proclamations of love, and he and Harrington don’t generate much romantic chemistry. She comes across as angry more than damaged as Felicia, whose difficult childhood culminated in abandonment by her drug-addict parents. In Harrington’s portrayal, Felicia sometimes seems like a blank slate, not fully understanding or reacting. It’s as if the character were conceived as so naive, she didn’t realize that she’d have to hide away with no fresh air and they’d be prosecuted if they were caught. But that simplemindedness is betrayed by her insights on things like Swan Lake, dog psychology, the Bible and painting.
A mural Felicia paints to brighten up her drab surroundings is part of the set design by Robert F. Wolin, and in a little bit of stage magic, it changes from scene to scene. While the airlock is minimally furnished, it’s depicted realistically, with narrow cots, overhead pipes and handwheel-operated watertight door. Still, it’s an odd setting for a story that has almost nothing to do with the military.
Rules of Desire runs through March 21 at the Playroom Theater (151 W. 46th St.). Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Tickets are available by calling (212) 967-8278 or visiting web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1024955.
