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review Welcome to the crotch of suburban America, a place of passion, fantasy and fear. Don't be afraid; it's only as real as the American imagination. Welcome to "The Babysitter", a memorable and impressive production of the Parallax Theatre Co. at Hollywood's McCadden Place Theatre. What we have here is a stage adaptation of Robert Coover's widely anthologized short story -- one of the great short stories of the 1960s. Like his contemporaries Joyce Carol Oates and Donald Bartheleme, Coover blew apart the conventional short story narrative in favor of something more subversive. "The Babysitter" presents readers with approximately 100 paragraphs, some as short as a sentence, which in combination paint a devastating portrait of American sexuality. Under Victor D'Altorio's outstanding direction, "The Babysitter" becomes nifty theatre. The eight-member-cast acts out Coover's complete text without props or a set. A Narrator (the entrancingly icy Henrietta Pearsall) introduces us to a teenage babysitter (Rhonda Patterson) minding two kids (T.L. Brooke, Darin Toonder); the two teenage boys (James C. Leary, Keith Bogart) who think about calling her; and the kids' partygoing parents (John Eric Montana, Winifred Freedman). Before the night is over, the characters' minds will live out their darkest fantasies; it's up to you to determine how much of their dreams are "real." The actors are not only perfectly cast, but keen practitioners of the energy, rage and envy needed to make this story work. The 95 intermissionless minutes become engrossing, flying by in brief and striking scenes. Parallax's stage adaptation is doubly amazing, because when you think of "The Babysitter", you think of television. In his story, Coover revisits his three storylines absurdly fast; the impression most readers get is that of a TV viewer changing channels with a remote control. ("The Babysitter" is sometimes cited as the ultimate critique of America's television culture, much as James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" satirized an earlier generation's infatuation with radio.) If you want some aggressive, provocative theatre, see this remarkable show. Of course, not everyone wants that kind of theatre: it reminds some people of their subconscious. One grouch behind me mumbled to his date, "I didn't like that show at all," and she nodded and agreed. I thought of slapping them on the way out of the theatre. I thought of telling them it was fucking great. Instead, I'll tell you. "The Babysitter"
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