Chinese Coffee serves a bitter cup of java
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
LoneWood Theatre Unit stages the caustic two-man drama Chinese Coffee through Sep. 3 at the back room of Eyedrum Art Gallery, which seems like the play’s ideal habitat. Playwright Ira Lewis presents the lives of two desperate, money-grubbing artists in Greenwich Village, so it it practically begs for a Bohemian locale. Eyedrum’s gravel driveway and folding chairs seem far more appropriate for the play’s seedy setting than, say, such plush venues as the Alliance Theatre or Theatrical Outfit’s Balzer Theatre.
For that matter, a steel cage would be appropriate, too, because Chinese Coffee presents a kind of mano-a-mano grudge match with rules along the lines of “Two men, enter, one man leaves.” The play unfolds as an after-midnight confrontation between Jake (Patrick Wood), a theatrical photographer and would-be writer, and Harry (Steven Westdahl), a published but struggling novelist. The equivalent of the opening bell rings when Harry pounds on Jake’s door, demanding to know if the older man has the money he owes Harry, and whether he’s read the manuscript for Harry’s latest novel.
