<p>“Switch off your cellphones or I will not be responsible for breaking them,” he said without much ado and thus set the tone for the rest of the performance that followed.<br /><br />Appearing on a mostly bare stage at the Alliance Francaise theatre, Riley moved through the personas of 10 vividly diverse characters. <br /><br />Homeless people, narcissistic rock stars, unscrupulous doctors, all based in America in the present time.<br /><br />The production itself has no frills. Just a cast of one and very little in the way of sets or special effects. It's just Riley in his pants and plain shirt, spinning out the various lives and personalities. <br /><br />He pulls clothes off a rack in the corner, and as he dons each tee shirt or tunic or jacket and becomes a different character.A homeless pan handler who has all the shakes and denials of a hopeless drug addict, “just released from Rikers Island” as he announces to the captive subway commuters, followed by a spate of reasons why “I need your money”.<br /><br /> Next a drawling urban cowboy who brags about his sexual prowess, all because he's hugely endowed, before moving on to a British rock star appearing on a talk show. The rock star, a veteran of hedonistic excess, describes how he did drugs every day for five years ‘spending some of his best moments’ in drugged out haze of escapism. <br />The funny satirical part is that the rock star/druggie apparently had a mystical experience while listening to Phil Donahue, gave up drugs, and is now doing a benefit for the Amazon Indians. <br /><br />Yet most of his conversation centres around drugs in a creepy nostalgic sort of way.<br />He then in turn becomes a hostile executive with a cellular phone glued to his ear, a doctor with a fake bedside manner and a nutty environmentalist who believes that pollution patterns are turning cities into “human septic tanks” and oceans into “giant vats of oil and garbage and dead animals”. <br /><br />The whole play is a telling indictment of American society as seen from the inside out by none other than Eric Bogosian, who is a great observer of the world around him.<br /><br />The sad thing is that the characters are really bleak and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.</p>
<p>“Switch off your cellphones or I will not be responsible for breaking them,” he said without much ado and thus set the tone for the rest of the performance that followed.<br /><br />Appearing on a mostly bare stage at the Alliance Francaise theatre, Riley moved through the personas of 10 vividly diverse characters. <br /><br />Homeless people, narcissistic rock stars, unscrupulous doctors, all based in America in the present time.<br /><br />The production itself has no frills. Just a cast of one and very little in the way of sets or special effects. It's just Riley in his pants and plain shirt, spinning out the various lives and personalities. <br /><br />He pulls clothes off a rack in the corner, and as he dons each tee shirt or tunic or jacket and becomes a different character.A homeless pan handler who has all the shakes and denials of a hopeless drug addict, “just released from Rikers Island” as he announces to the captive subway commuters, followed by a spate of reasons why “I need your money”.<br /><br /> Next a drawling urban cowboy who brags about his sexual prowess, all because he's hugely endowed, before moving on to a British rock star appearing on a talk show. The rock star, a veteran of hedonistic excess, describes how he did drugs every day for five years ‘spending some of his best moments’ in drugged out haze of escapism. <br />The funny satirical part is that the rock star/druggie apparently had a mystical experience while listening to Phil Donahue, gave up drugs, and is now doing a benefit for the Amazon Indians. <br /><br />Yet most of his conversation centres around drugs in a creepy nostalgic sort of way.<br />He then in turn becomes a hostile executive with a cellular phone glued to his ear, a doctor with a fake bedside manner and a nutty environmentalist who believes that pollution patterns are turning cities into “human septic tanks” and oceans into “giant vats of oil and garbage and dead animals”. <br /><br />The whole play is a telling indictment of American society as seen from the inside out by none other than Eric Bogosian, who is a great observer of the world around him.<br /><br />The sad thing is that the characters are really bleak and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.</p>
