Fringe: The Boy in the Basement: Romance in the Pants

Romance novels: full of cliché plots, stock characters, improbable coincidences, and plenty of bawdy sex, they are the staple of many a beach read.  Now Katherine Heller brings those tropes to very funny life in her play The Boy in the Basement, part of the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.

Not to be confused with last year's NYMF show The Boy in the Bathroom, Four college girls share an off-campus house- Anna, a sweet and naïve virgin (Megan Powe), Clarissa, a sexually voracious no-nonsense type (Lynne Rosenberg), Aurora, a ditzy hippie (Anna Stumpf), and Xandra, a dominant Venezuelan man-eater (author Katherine Heller).  One night they discover the handsome young Lance Speedworth (Tom Macy) attempting to steal their television.  Rather than turn him in to the police (he's only stealing to get money for his sister's operation), they keep the hard-bodied boy as a sex-slave, chained up in their basement, for a week.  That is, all except Anna, who thinks the other three are having him perform more heavy-lifting, rather than heavy-petting chores.

All of this is narrated by a man (the very funny Nick Fondulis) going by the nom du plume "Catherine DuCheval" (and it is a plume indeed- he writes with a feather pen dipped in ink) is writing a romance novel, lucubrating as he narrates the story for the audience: "Anna's honey-hued tresses shimmered in the sunlight streaming in from the bay window. Her creamy pale skin had a peach rosiness to it, as did her heart-shaped lips. The silk blouse that Anna had carelessly thrown on that morning clung to her shapely bosom in a flattering manner. As she turned in front of the mirror, she thought to herself, she looked pretty good!"

Heller mocks the florid prose of her genre deftly.  The story is appropriately predictable, and the dialogue clever.  It's a bit confusing why the novel is being written- it seems at times the narrator is becoming aroused by his own erotic prose,  posing the question of who would be the intended audience for his bodice-ripper.  There are also a few meta-moments when the characters seem to be out of the author's control, but not much is made of this, so the outer fiction remains elusive.

The cast are all funny, attractive, or both.  Nell Balaban directs with a firm hand, and the humor never lags.

There's no deep meaning or powerful statement here, just a fun time.

The Boy in the Basement
Basement Boy Productions

Part of The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC)
VENUE #7: The SoHo Playhouse

Remaining performances:
Thu 14 @ 3:45
Thu 21 @ 11:45
Sat 23 @ 10

Photo Credit: Luke Ratray

1. Lynne Rosenberg, Meghan Powe, Katharine Heller, Anna Stumpf, Tom Macy
2. Katharine Heller, Tom Macy