There’s a party going on at the home of a prominent psychiatrist who is too busy talking on the phone to his celebrating clients to go to the party. Attending is a hyper psychiatrist who only believes in drug therapy and who happens to be sleeping with the phone doc’s wife. Blend in a rebellious teen, a prominent black therapist who has fallen on hard times, and two escaped convicts out for revenge against the pill doc, and you have the makings of the new play at the Lillian Theatre, Shock Therapy.
Shock Therapy is a pleasant enough diversion and has its share of laughs, but never really rises above the level of a plot of some television episode. The author is Tom Baum of The Manhattan Project, The Hitchhiker, Hugo the Hippo, and three ABC After School Specials. He has a good ear for dialogue and a quirky sense of character.
While the plot may have familiar elements, like escaped convicts at a party holding hostages, Baum also gets to feature some rather current fashions in psychotherapy at odds
with each other. There is the television shrink who pushes pills, hilariously played by Gregg Henry. In his spare time he has experimented on local prisoners, who happen to turn up at the party and give him, literally, a taste of his own medicine. Henry must go from a glad-happy and hip doctor to a stoned one begging on his knees for his life and meanwhile spilling his guts (the pills work like truth serum). Henry never has a false moment and is a total joy to watch.
The rest of the cast is also quite good, with Scott Paulin as the celebrity doc, Lisa Robbins as his wife, Cece Antoinette as the black therapist, and Mathew Glave as the menacing convict. Sophie Ullett plays the rebellious teen and Glenn Herman is another, more psychotic prisoner.
Matt Maenpaa and Adam Hunter have designed a very good set which captures a room in a house on Cape Cod. Rudy Dillon designed the costumes. The ever-talented Jenny O’Hara is the director and has modulated and paced the show nicely.
Shock Therapy plays at the Lillian Theatre through Dec. 7th.
Article comments