As the play opens, a man in a lab coat (Cecsarini) questions a female character (Iannone). The man is trying to get the woman to talk about certain deeds she’d committed in the past, but she’s reluctant to do so. The friction between them is intense. Iannone regards the man and the sterile room in which she’s being questioned with a stern, saturnine look. She doesn’t want to talk about the topic at hand, homicide, but there’s a darkness lurking beneath her surface that lets us know she could do it again. By contrast, Cecsarini’s protagonist seems rather calm and patient. His genuine concern for the woman is more than enough to draw in audiences.
Things get more interesting when it’s Iannone’s turn to wear the lab coat. Here Cecsarini is playing the Jason end of the Jason/Medea story. He’s an aggressive adventurer who looks at the challenge of leaving Purgatory as a contest. It’s a brilliant, energetic performance that cleverly shades the final moments of the play with the full realization of what’s going on.
The explosive ending may feel a bit cheap next to all of the intricate intensity leading up to it, but Iannone and Cecsarini do a magnificent job of holding together this fantastic drama all the way to the final bow.
Next Act’s Purgatorio runs through Feb. 21 at the Off-Broadway Theatre.
