Original story by David Holthouse, adapted and directed by Markus Porter.
Cast: Roderick Hill, Erik Heger, Kate Levy, Murphy Guyer, John Herrera, Roxanne Hart. At New World Stages theater.
While playing in a neighbor’s basement game room, a boy is raped by a teen while their parents are upstairs socializing. Is there reason for an eye for an eye? This difficult question becomes the impetus for this startling play based on a true story.
In 2009 there were approximately 220,000 reported cases of sexual child abuse in the USA. David Holthouse’s tragic saga of the impact of his sexual abuse is one of them, with twenty-five years of nightmares and trauma resulting from this horrible rape by his overpowering 17-year-old sociopath neighbor, when he was just seven years old. A held and released hostage, David became an innocent victim with fear and guilt branded on him for life. Struggling and wanting closure, he goes to therapy sessions with Dr. Sarah Leavitt (Roxanne Hart) that lead to heated discussions of reality versus fantasy and moral conflict.
As he grows older and wiser, thinking and wrestling with his inner conflict, David considers a plan for the bogeyman’s demise, believing that by ridding the world of the bogeyman, he will gain some satisfaction while also protecting other children. David gets a .38 caliber revolver with silencer, along with sage advice from Payaso (John Herrera) a street gang informant he befriended when writing about Street Gangs for the Denver Post. The sequential accounts of David Holthouse’s (Roderick Hill) life are skillfully and remarkably played, as the character matures over the years, graduating and winning an internship at The Village Voice, and becoming a resourceful, in-depth professional reporter. The gripping and intense story is complimented with five more actors in multiple roles, all with fine matching connecting performances.
The play’s step-by-step suspense builds and has us hanging by our fingertips on the backs of the seat in front. A coincidence occurs that reconnects the characters when they move to the same city years later, leading us to witness the nemesis. A suffering David struggles to contain his rage. The outrage of his loving parents, who eventually discover the rape of their son in the game room basement while they were chatting with the culprit’s parents in the upstairs living room, is realistically expressed through exceptional performances.
There is an emotionally charged finale. The one-on-one confrontation is filled with dark intrigue, sharp dialog and deafening silences. I won’t reveal the end. You’ll want to see this top-flight performance of Stalking The Bogeyman, a taut and haunting drama on a repugnant subject, tackled with courage, power and sensitivity.
The play provokes us to think of basic moral aspects, and what we would do if we were so unfortunate as to be in that shocking unthinkable tragic situation. How far would you go to protect yourself, your child or a dearly loved one? Can anyone really get even? These tough questions beckon hard to find answers, if there are any. Victims of these circumstances face bare bones decisions that challenge society’s laws of right and wrong.
Stanley Fine, former Ad Agency Creative Director and CLIO judge, is a freelance writer who has written and produced plays and numerous travel adventure stories. finestan@earthlink.net
