Misfortune Awaits You

Karen Malpede has written several new plays, dealing variously with the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, war refugees, a betrayal-strewn marriage, acting classes and the ghosts of former lovers. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to squeeze all of these plays into a single, long-winded evening, haphazardly titled Prophecy.

Normally, the variety of choice afforded by a myriad of plays in a single evening would compensate for the uneasy, uneven narratives: Bored with one, we simply have to wait five minutes for the next story to crop up. But most of Malpede’s narratives are as dull as the one before. So unappealing are these characters, even the beloved Kathleen Chalfant begins to grate on the nerves.

An acting teacher at a conservatory, Sarah Golden (Chalfant) finds herself obsessed by her most promising student, Jeremy Thrasher (Brendan Donaldson), who reminds her of her revolutionary lover Lukas, killed during the Vietnam War. Conveniently enough, Lukas’ commanding officer is also the conservatory’s dean, Charles Muffler (Peter Francis James), and Sarah has never, in over 30 years, asked until now about the mysterious circumstances under which Lukas ended up shot in the head (Malpede likes things to be tidy). Of course Thrasher (Malpede likes evocative names) also happens to be a traumatized Iraq war vet, who becomes increasingly unhinged as he performs a speech from Antigone in class.

Also crammed into the two-and-a-half hour running time—it feels a lot longer—are Sarah’s adulterous husband Alan (George Bartenieff), his mistress Hala (Najla Said, who does triple duty), their grown child Mariam (Said), Thrasher’s dim, bitchy girlfriend (Said again), and more flashbacks than a film noir. Unfortunately, both the sixtysomething Chalfant and the seventysomething Bartenieff play their characters in the ’70s and ’80s as well, which adds a level of surrealness to the proceedings; watching Chalfant act the part of a thirtysomething woman dramatically bemoaning her barrenness is truly bizarre.

Directing her own work, Malpede is unable to overcome her script’s shortcomings and find any sort of momentum. The play lurches from Sarah waxing rhapsodic over making love on a red rug with Lukas to a scene of father-daughter rapprochement between Alan and Mariam and then to a wild-eyed Donaldson as Thrasher, eyes gleaming and manic smile plastered to his face as if he were Jack Black in a particularly dark comedy. Under Malpede’s direction, even Chalfant—only recently freed from Jonathan Demme’s reign of cluelessness in Family Week—seems uncomfortable on stage, relying on distracting tics like tossing her head to see her safely to play’s end. Prophecy turns out to be aptly titled: I see better work in the future for all of these performers.

Prophecy

Through June 20, East Fourth Street Theater, 83 E. 4th St. (betw. 2nd Ave. & Bowery), 212-868-4444; $40.