ArtsVegas Review: Casa de Nada

By JMDF
Photos by Richard Brusky

Sue McNulty stars as Ruby Slipper, ahomeless woman with unearthly menstrual flow. Her badge is

the winged tampon, an inverted crucifix transformed from the Son of Light to the Daughter of Darkness. She’s the den mother for a collection of squatters who perform odd jobs in return for lottery tickets. There’s something suspicious about the lottery itself but none of the squatters seem to know much about anything for certain. Then an unsettling visitor arrives to set in motion a chilling revelation. It’s hard to say much about Casa de Nada without feeling like you’re giving surprises away, so here’s a detour:

The picture to the left represents one of the more esoteric themes a person may encounter while watching Casa de Nada. It’s a picture of the Willendorf Venus, which was carved by our ancestors about 25,000 years ago. She represents perhaps one of the first extra-dimensional beings the human race encountered while intoxicated on the powerfully hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushroom (one of which visually dominates the Casa de Nada stage while posing as a piece of furniture). The seven bands of wavy lines which veil her face are indeed reminiscent of a psychedelically-induced vision. Did our ancestors actually perceive Mother Nature Herself while under the effects of this drug? What sort of ceremonies did they perform while indulging in the communion? Were our ancestors blessed, as the audiences of Casa de Nada are blessed, with the vision of Ruby Slipper, the perpetually menstruating Venus of Willendorf, squatting on the face of a fallen man while offering to resuscitate him with the power of her bleeding Jesus/Vagina? It’s hard to form an answer to this heavily loaded question because by now we’ve practically reached the end of Casa de Nada.

The unfortunate thing about this play is that it ends right where it should begin. By the time we’re finished getting to know the marginally compelling characters Erica Griffin and her able cast have created, there’s no momentum left to knock any fruit off the tree. Although she’s able to shroud this short psychodrama with some interesting ambience, it seems to have navigational problems once it hits the high sea. With more thoughtful meditation on the themes to which she’s naturally drawn, I believe the playwright’s good instincts will eventually lead her through this wild forest of ideas.

There’s one more thing that should not go without mention. There’s a warning on the back of the program: THIS SHOW CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE and SACRILIGIOUS HUMOR!! (sic). Devout Christians will indeed find the opening salvo of this show unnecessarily insensitive to their religious feeling. There’s very little excuse for it artistically, unless of course Jesus is a mushroom.ArtsVegas Review: Casa de Nada