While the epidemic of straightforward revivals off-off-Broadway is potentially a much bigger threat to the vibrancy of New York theater than any closing on Broadway, it’s hard to think of a more perfect, timely play to revive than Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy, now playing in the Red Room in a superb production by the Black Door Theatre Company. In 1979, while the kids were spiking their hair and listening to the Clash, the 30-somethings were just doing their best not to get caught up in the chaos bearing down on Thatcher’s England. The real victims of the era were the working classes, a group that includes every character in Ecstasy, who spend the entire play trying not to think about the doom that’s about to hit them.
The sociopolitical significance of these characters' lives is undeniable, but save for one painful-to-hear discussion of immigration, the vulnerability is kept on a personal level. Whether it's the unhealthy relationship of naked lovers Jean and Roy in the opening scene (a relationship which, at its boiling point, nearly results in a rape), the obvious but repressed unhappiness in the marriage of Jean’s only real friends Mick and Dawn, or the impossibility of a rekindled relationship between Jean and old friend Len, no one is getting out of this play happy. But almost none of the dialog directly refers to this desperation. Because of the characters' deep but glaring repression, Ecstasy requires an excellent cast — and an even better director — to nail the social dynamics and mannerisms of characters who are very rarely sober, and though almost always forlorn can still force out a laugh whenever they can get it.
Despite inconsistent accents and a limited set, director Sara Laudonia works miracles from her cast; there are more than a few moments when the audience is just as ready to weep as the characters. The two female leads are the cast's two standouts, and provide the most distinct contrast in ways of dealing with emotional pain.
Gina LeMoine’s Dawn, married to brutish Irishman Mick (Brandon McCluskey), tries in vain to pretend she’s still 20, remaining the boisterous life of the party against all sense of reason. LeMoine lets brief moments of pain sear across all her dignified perkiness, and it’s those sparse moments that brand the memory harder than over 90 minutes' worth of Dawn supposedly enjoying herself.
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