Diandra Reviews It All

Chrissy, a bright young woman with a background of harshness that has robbed her of her innocence long ago, has visions of a career as a dancer. She finds herself in The Boom Boom Room, a Philadelphia disco/bar meant to be her first step on the road to a better life. Instead, she must fight to defend her dream and keep her anger in check amid the sex and stimulation that surround her, the psychological residue of her parents’ betrayals and the bizarre pack of suitors who follow her. In a desperate search, Chrissy careens from the seductive mistress of ceremonies at The Boom Boom Room to the earnestly friendly gay man next door to a brutally passionate lover. In its compassionate look at Chrissy’s living nightmare, David Rabe’s IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM is a piercing look at a society dangerously close to our own lives.

In The Boom Room is a rough watch. Nina Kassa’s Chrissy is a giant highlight of how girls lost to abandonment and abuse can become women who are lost to the same. Kassa carries the show that is a sheer exploration of how a person uses their body as weapon, whim, and a warped sense of empowerment because their soul has been crushed. Probably one of the only, if not one of the best, off-Broadway plays, currently, approaching the topics of child sex abuse. This is not an easy discussion, which is why the nuances of its effects and how it can define that child’s adulthood are not always captured. While Rabe wrote this once “controversial” play in the 1970’s, it still feels like revolutionary material and one of the few plays to approach and grasp this dark subject. Thankfully, Director Greg Cicchino feels the same, and has set up the play to never lose a sense of eeriness and inner lostness, just like Chrissy. From the beginning, the dim lighting and set are made to emanate a constant murkiness, as if joy is too muddled an endeavor to ever accomplish. This could be why Chrissy makes so many bad, self-destructive decisions; she is inheriting/ responding to the bad decisions of her cold parents: Harold played by Pete Mattaliano and Helen played by Malikha Mallette. Both actors do well to elaborate how cruelly they DO NOT care for Chrissy, and further the old notion that “Some people should not be parents”. As Chrissy meets characters like Guy (Deven Anderson), Eric (Kyle Kirkpatrick), Melissa (Alexandra Tabas), Vicki (Tina Marie Tanzer), Al (Kirk Gostkowsk) and Sally (Cori Stolbun), it just feels like a whirlwind of combusting personas. Whether they are kind or cruel, the point is they are lost. Not one character feels in full ownership of their being and body, of which Chrissy, whose under-currents of optimism, feels like a tiny light that the audience cannot seem to protect.

From Chrissy’s sexual to her racial identity, In The Boom Boom Room is constantly approaching the confusion of being human, especially after so much trauma. In a world that loves to label people, the labels and layers we give ourselves can seem especially burdensome and burrowing if your whole life has been one of mistreatment. From her parents to her husband, Chrissy never achieves a safe space or person to confide in and rest her heart with. Thus, Cicchino shows that In The Boom Boom Room, is, ultimately, a story/ proof that a young woman filled with love to give can live a whole life without receiving it. Performances of IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM are Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM, with matinees Saturday & Sunday at 2 PM through May 6th. Tickets are $18 and are available through www.chaintheatre.org or by calling 866-811-4111. It is playing at American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54 Street (between Eighth & Ninth Ave.