The Vandal

                                         

                             

The Vandal at Flea Theater by Hamish Linklater is the first play by this celebrated actor; Jim Simpson directed it.  A three-handler with distinct roles -- a woman, a man, and a boy (only so identified) -- it resembles a Noh play; and it also unfolds like a Noh in three narrative stages.  A middle-aged woman on an isolated bus stop bench, bundled up in the cold and pitifully forlorn, is visited by a brash teen-ager who garrulously tries to strike a conversation but with little success; she remains clammed up but eventually he persuades her to go to the nearby liquor store to get beer for her.  At the liquor the woman confronts its owner who gives her a bad time demanding to see her ID and suggesting that he knows that she is buying beer for his wayward son.  Soon it is clear that none of the three characters is revealing truth about themselves; in the final part of the play the man joins the woman in the cemetery behind the bus stop, but we are never quite certain if any of them is real or perhaps apparitional. The play develops the mysterious characters evocatively, and it not only kept me engaged but left me a lasting impression, owing to a large extent to the stunning performance of Deirdre O’Connell as Woman, assisted by equally effective Zach Grenier as Man and Noah Robbins as Boy.