David Hirson’s “Wrong Mountain” begins with its protagonist, poet Henry Dennett (Richard Sandoval) learning that he’s infected with an intestinal parasite. Were I as clumsy a writer as Mr. Hirson I might suggest this is an apt metaphor for the experience of watching the play. Instead I will say that it’s like being trapped inside a particularly turgid article of the Paris Review. Henry’s ex-wife (Julie Partyka) is now engaged to Guy, a Broadway playwright. (Michael Dickson) This grates on him because he despises theatre as a medium that panders to the middle class masses, unlike the aesthetically pure medium of poetry, which does not lower itself to base commerce. Guy challenges Henry to write a successful play if it’s so easy, which he does. The action then moves to a theater “in the hinterlands” where Henry’s play, “The Wrong Mountain” (Hey!) is workshopped. There’s a great deal of tedious blather about what is or is not art. This question is simultaneously one of the most explored and least interesting preoccupations in the world. This is not to underrate art’s importance but to decry its misappropriation as a masturbatory aid for the intellect. Henry is an unspeakably arrogant, bitter misanthrope who despises those he considers to be his intellectual inferiors, pretty much everyone. Most distastefully, we are treated to depictions of his sexual fantasies about smart, much younger women whom he imagines worshipping him. Hirson understands that Henry is unsympathetic, at least, one fervently hopes, but the play seems to be in agreement with his view of life. Author and protagonist appear to agree with the perverse, all too common fallacy that mean spiritedness correlates closely with intelligence, wisdom, and bold truth telling, while kindness and civility go hand in hand with simplemindedness. I can see humor in the moments where we laugh at Henry, but can’t abide those in which we’re meant to laugh with him. In a town with many great options, The Wrong Mountain is the wrong show to see.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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