The Fastest Clock in the Universe
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We can now add to that vainglorious lineup Cougar Glass, the protagonist of Philip Ridley’s black comedy The Fastest Clock in the Universe, currently receiving a smart, tangy production at A Red Orchid Theatre. Ridley–the Brit who penned the screenplay for the 1990 crime thriller The Krays–possesses the rare gift of writing darkly and humorously at the same time. Though contemporary writers like Neil LaBute (Bash, The Shape of Things) are consistently identified as masters of black comedy, they’re actually punishing nihilists who wouldn’t know a decent joke if they slipped on its peel. Meanwhile Ridley comes up with lines like “I could have a stomach full of maggots, for all I care, as long as I’ve got a suntan.”
Although Ridley takes a two-and-a-half-hour plunge into ultraviolence a la Clockwork Orange, the descent is a bracing, acid-dipped effort that smacks of Joe Orton’s wickedly offbeat late-60s chillers. In fact Ridley has so much fun just naming his characters–Foxtrot Darling, Sherbet Gravel, Cheetah Bee–that you can’t help but have a good time too.
Jen Engstrom is a hoot in her cameo as an Edward Gorey-style neighbor wearing a lipstick smear. But the evening belongs to Larry Neumann Jr., whose fey, shriveled Captain Tock is a careful and lovely accomplishment. It’s devastating to watch him fawn over Cougar, who will merely punish him for his loyalty. And though the Captain has received the least love of any of the characters, he understands it the best, speaking gently of the nature of true beauty while bathed in the glow of Cougar’s 19 birthday candles.
Where: A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells
