ongoing – June 7

 Might as well say it flat-out: We’ve never laughed so hard or so often at an A.R.T. production as we did during David Mamet’s “Romance,” up at the Loeb Drama Center through June 7. This laughter was often accompanied by a wince or a tinge of “should I be laughing at this?” reflection, but it some ways Mamet’s play took me to the same state comic Robert Schimmel does. The topics are outrageous, beyond the pale and hilarious as hell. It’s the great release valve cutting-edge comedy brings.
Mamet, according A.R.T. executive director Robert Orchard, wrote the play about five years ago, partially in response to the common thought: “Mamet’s a great, gritty dramatist, but can he do comedy?” If true, Mamet took up the challenge with great purpose and in “Romance,” created a courtroom farce that is profane, profound in places and effin brilliant. If you know Mamet, former Newton resident, you know the man likes his f-bombs and a (rough) count on press night revealed 64 variations of the world’s favorite curse. None used gratuitously, it must be said.
Orchard said he’d seen the play on Broadway and – yes, he has a vested interest here, of course – said he liked the A.R.T. production, directed by Scott Zigler and starring Will LeBow (in photo) as Danny the Judge. LeBow's done a lot of great acting for the A.R.T. and elsewhere but his stressed-out, sunken-eyed, befuddled, deranged, drug-addled, allergy-afflicted, anti-Semitic, pedophile, homosexual/homophone (with an occasional moment of clarity) character is just a marvel of twists and turns. What goes on in his head is like a giant roulette wheel and you never know where the ball will stop.
When the Defendant, the rotund bearded Remo Airaldi and his Defense Attorney, sharp-jawed Jim True-Frost, want to get a half-hour respite from court – because they, a Jew-hating lawyer and a Christian-bashing criminal-chiropractor, have concocted a scenario for peace in the Middle East. It seems there’s a conference about Middle East peace going on across the street – we hear the parades and sirens – and if only they could get over there and speak to the warring leaders, they could magically make Palestine and Israel co-exist. No such luck. The Judge, in fact, sings, “No, I will not let you go!” from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That’s that. Everyone accepts that exclamation as the judge’s decision.
We’re not sure at the beginning what Remo’s character is on trial for, but we soon suspect that it may have something to do with a homosexual relationship with a buff black man, Bernard (or Bunny) played by Carl Foreman. We also learn Bunny has a relationship with the prosecuting attorney, Thomas Derrah. Hmmm … Something will come to a head here.
But “Romance” is far less a plot-driven exercise than it is a joyous (and scabrous) stab at adult silliness and barely repressed anger - anger expressed as bilious barbs, which is to say, comedy. We say adult because – as a program board notes in the lobby – this play is guaranteed to offend everyone possible. In this, “Romance” recalls Norman Lear’s groundbreaking ‘70s sitcom, “All in the Family,” where America heard Archie Bunker toss the word “kike” around rather freely.
That word – and many worse – are used in “Romance.” The Jew is a “Christ-killer,” the Episcopalian (“a Catholic with a Volvo?”) sends his boy for church-sponsored hockey and it is suggested the priest will most certainly bugger the yonng lad. He berates the Defendant for Holocaust obsession: “You people cannot eat a cheese sandwich without mentioning the Holocaust?” Defendant’s retort: We don’t eat them because they have no taste. (He does, however, note his people have a habit of eating Christian babies – you know that old canard.) The Christian lawyer behooves the Arabs to rise up in droves to drive Israel into the sea. And so it goes. Until, well, they find this bond … a solution to the Middle East crisis, which remains, tantalizingly, out of view.
But in terms of characters, it’s LeBow who’s the star of the show. He’s a sad-sack judge who has no idea how he got there, loves the idea he can condemn anyone to death for the hell of it, and takes his outer-garments off when he’s too hot. He spends a lot of time musing as to whether Shakespeare was Jewish, gay, or both. “Was Shakespeare a Jew or was he a normal person?” He is “relieved” to find out that when he confesses his father was a Jew, that Remo’s character tells him he’s not really a Jew because his mother wasn’t Jewish. The judge praises the Lord for that one. (Note: Although this is equal-opportunity race-ethnic-religious baiting, Mamet himself is Jewish.)
The tirades, diatribes and barbs all do coalesce into a confessional scene at the end of this 80-minute play. To reveal those questions, would be revealing too much. There’s some heartbreak and a lot of humor. Robert Brustein, the A.R.T.’s founder, was at the play and proclaimed, “Will LeBow has blown me away!" He, like Orchard, had seen it on Broadway and found this “twice as funny.” And of his vested interest? Oh, maybe, Brustein said with a smile “but I am retired.”
It’s the A.R.T.’s first production of a Mamet Celebration that continues May 29 – June 6 with shorts by him, Pinter and Shel Silverstein and “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “The Duck Variations” June 11 –28.
Performances:  Tues.-Wed.-Thurs. & Sun. shows at 7:30 and Fri.-Sat. shows at 8. Sat. and Sun. matinees at 2. Tickets: $79-$25.

40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-547-8300   www.amrep.org