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There's a constant sense of working at cross-purposes through Parness's mounting. Cahn has outlined a situation in which three women (played by Corey Tazmania, Julia Campanelli, and Alice Bahlke) collide in a modern-chic living room, and attempt to determine which of them is guilty or innocent of a set of charges that keeps changing as they learn more about each other. It's likely that Parness intended the brittle artifice beneath which two of his characters operate to add an additional layer of tension to the evening, and prevent you from gathering the external clues you'd need to solve the mystery before the women do. But the two under the most suspicion, Tazmania and Campanelli are never quite believable enough. From her first entrance, Tazmania's Claire appears to be playing a role as though under constant scrutiny from an acting teacher, with each movement, whether removing shoes, setting down her bags, or arranging a pile of packages executed with computer-programmed precision that immediately throws up red flags as to her sincerity. So when she's assailed mere minutes later by a visitor, Tracy (Bahlke), who won't take "no" or an expressly implied "get out" for an answer, you have no good reason to believe, as the script wants you to, that Claire is the one under baseless assault. After it's revealed that Tracy is from the shopping center Claire frequents, and that Claire is under observation for potential illegal (or at least questionable) activities, the suspense does pick up as the two work to ascertain what the other knows—without giving away any potentially incriminating details, of course. It soon turns out that neither is quite as honest as she appears to be, and neither is telling the whole story. It then looks as though Cahn is planning to demolish his subtly created house of lies when Joanna (Campanelli) enters, awash in Claire's exact aura of pristine otherworldliness, and the cycle begins again, though this time with so many cards showing and so much plot to unravel, any true shiver of discovery is gone for good. The twistiness of Cahn's writing ensures that Villainous Company is always better than a slog, and a few choice stabs of reversal and narrative surprise are worthy of inclusion in a bestselling crime-thriller novel. But these are few and loaded at the end. Until then, the characters do a lot of circuitous talking that pads out the running time (about 100 minutes) but doesn't add depth, and pose artfully in Brooke Cohen's attractive costumes on Jennifer Varbalow's showpiece-ready set. Tazmania and Campanelli are especially good at this, but even when Claire and Joanna are supposed to be at their most nefarious, they look more primed for a Vogue photo shoot than a battle to the death (or jail, whichever comes first). Bahlke, however, is refreshing, delivering a spunky but surreptitious portrayal of a young woman who's especially good at hiding her true motives. Couching Tracy's deepest nastiness within a sun-streaked personality, Bahlke puts you at ease before proving that this game of wits is one that Tracy is more than equipped to play. Because Bahlke better manages her layers of misdirection, Tracy seems at once more real and more threatening than anyone else onstage, and the more casual nature of her acting gives the play a much-needed jolt of unpredictability. Laden as it is with a largely pedestrian story and too on-the-nose second-act dialogue, which highlights far too many specifics in blinking neon, Villainous Company probably can't ever be quite effervescent enough to qualify as the "caper" its poster and program advertise. But Bahlke shows how a few cracks in the crystal can make compelling theatre, and leave you hankering for more than the most polished, dust-free museum space or exterior attitude ever will.
Villainous Company
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