March 24-30, 2005

theater

Beauty Is a Beast

by David Anthony Fox

If only good intentions were enough for a good play. Catherine Filloux's The Beauty Inside has plenty of the former, but isn't, by any stretch of the most forgiving imagination, the latter.

In the all-too-brief plus column, we have the promise of a compelling plot. Devrim is a young female attorney, born and raised in Turkey. Devrim's adoring father, Nazim, has given her the best of everything, including a Harvard education. Now, just before she leaves home for New York — and the promise of partnership in a blue-chip firm — Devrim will take on one last pro bono case in Istanbul: the matter of a 14-year-old girl named Yalova, who is targeted for an "honor death." Yalova was seduced (as Devrim sees it, raped) by a local boy, who left her pregnant. Her attempted murder was carried out by her father and brother, with her grieving mother, Peri, giving tacit approval.

Yalova needs a protector. Devrim, who has just learned that her father was involved in sleazy corporate dealings, needs to feel worthwhile. The two, whose worlds are utterly different, form a bond.

From the start, Filloux's script is a mess. Characters are drawn carelessly, cartoonishly. Devrim is a chain-smoking, hyperactive alpha woman; Nazim, a slimeball who seems to have eyes for his own daughter. An opening scene where he promises her a pied-à-terre in Manhattan sounds like something from Danielle Steele.

More often, though, Filloux's dialogue takes the form of elliptical phrases. I assume they're meant to sound like Stoppard or Pinter, but they're merely stilted. The opening scene, counterpointing Devrim's life with Yalova's, fairly clanks with heavy metaphors: night/day, sun/moon, etc. The visual world is equally thudding, with a screen separating Devrim and Yalova, just in case we might miss the point.

With few conversations having any sense of naturalness, we might at least hope for clear storytelling, but here too Beauty quickly fades. I still can't explain exactly what it is that Devrim in her legal capacity is doing for Yalova. Or what's going on with the girl's family. (The mother, who chants and grieves and cries, is a reductive cliche.) Or who several of the male characters are.

Kay Matschullat's production is simultaneously busy and nonspecific, and a musical score by Liz Swados quickly overstays its welcome. Aside from Michelle Rios, who makes a dignified Peri, none of the acting transcends the writing.

Perhaps it's best that I leave it with a single word: Turkey.

The Beauty Inside Through April 3, InterAct Theatre Co. at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8079