IN THE SWING
nytheatre.com review by Erik Sniedze
August 15, 2002
Lara Mottolo’s In The Swing might be an exercise in writing for
Pamela Anderson’s VIP or the sequel to the Charlie’s Angels. Or
maybe it’s not. Swing uses a formula we know all too well. Three women
use their sex to fool men and make money. They have secret identities:
Blondie, Joni Mitchell, and Billie Holiday (Krystin MacRitchie, Maria
Teresa Creasey, and Eleni Elopoulos respectively). They usecliches like
"Mickey Mouse operation" and sexual innuendos like "Up and Running" or
"You’re going to get it"; sometimes they’re clever, as in "Charm and
cleavage can only get you so far." But, Mottolo’s game plan for their
money-making scheme involving an 8 billion dollar robbery is ludicrous
and unintelligible. The plot makes less sense than those acting
interludes in a 99 cent porno. You zone out while waiting for the
inevitable sex scene.There aren’t any graphic sex acts. Aaron Rhyne’s gratuitous direction is about as unerotic as you can get and still be offensive to women. Rhyne’s stage business for these tough cookies includes reapplying lipstick, filing and painting finger nails, snapping shut make-up compacts, taking detailed notes on a waitress order sized notebook, and dropping pencils so that the women can bend over for crotch shots. Billie Holiday actually fans her crotch while lying on a desk consulting a bank employee on a transaction. Thankfully, the director has refrained from making anyone wax their bikini line to pass the time. Hopefully with the expected 8 billion, they won’t have to manicure themselves every spare second.
The gaping plot oversight is that these women robbers never carry guns or explosives for this bank job. At one point Blondie uses an unhelpful tape measure. She also gets her picture on Page Six in a burglar mask (?). Was I to assume that there was a Prada label on said mask, or that there was a celebrity nearby, or that the robbery was not newsworthy enough for the Metro Section?
Oh, and there are four good-looking guys who get duped by these disastrous developments. Yuval David is especially handsome in handcuffs. But, to be fair, there really isn’t much of a script or direction for any of these actors to act. Maybe another episode of In The Swing will prove more successful. Or maybe not.
