NYU News: Arts and Entertainment

'Hell Cab' one hellish ride

By: Ruthie Ackerman
November 04, 2005

As a man gripping his cup of coffee like a lifeline struggles to open the door of his cab, he is unaware that this is about to be the longest night of his life. "Hell Cab," a revival production from 2002 by the Rising Sun Performance Company, is a patchwork of stories woven together from the experiences of Will Kern, a cab driver and playwright, who based his play on the motley assortment of passengers he met as a cabdriver in Chicago.

By over-ambitiously trying to tackle questions about connection, faith, boundaries and relationships, the play, directed by Akia, comes across as a clichéd attempt to reveal the human condition through vignettes that approach relationships and people in a stereotypical manner. Instead of tackling issues surrounding race and gender relations, the play recreates one-dimensional characters that can seem as if they came straight from the set of "Jerry Springer." This is especially disappointing coming from a company whose mission is to "present outlets for creation, growth, exploration and risk-taking to diversify and expand beyond the traditional theatre."

The play's saving grace is Nic Mevoli, who is endearing as the cab driver as he meanders through the cold streets of Chicago just before Christmas. In one of the most poignant scenes, he returns to find a girl, whom he had dropped off at her work just a half hour before, to tell her that her boyfriend had been talking about her behind her back and claiming to have used her for sex. A fellow cabdriver, to whom Mevoli's character tells the story, warns him, "Don't expect to get the reaction you want."

It turns out, however, that the exact reaction he needs - the beginnings of intimacy - is what he fears the most. Throughout the play, the character is searching for a deeper connection with the passengers, but his attempts fail because of the fleeting nature of his business and the self-absorption of his customers. He wants to feel some kind of connection with the girl, and although the feeling is mutual, his fear of intimacy overcomes him as he uses his cab as a shield and drives away.

Every passenger that gets into the cab - from Shalita, a scantily-clad African-American woman involved in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend, to the couple having sex in the back of the car and using bananas as aids, to the born-again couple that try to convert the driver on their way to church - oversteps the boundaries of the driver-passenger relationship even before the conversation degenerates into a quasi-confessional masquerade.

Elizabeth Burke's performance outshines the other members of the cast as she switches between characters with agility. She first portrays a sex-starved lawyer throwing herself at the cabbie, then switches to a welfare mother who drunkenly passes out in the backseat of the cab, and finally depicts a woman who has recently been raped by an acquaintance in the most shocking scene of the play.

None of the passengers seem to notice the driver's despair as he ministers to their every whim, until we reach the final customer of the night, an architect with whom Mevoli shares an emotional connection. The play then attempts an easy solution on an upbeat note. If this one night in the life of this cabdriver is any indication of the world at large, the future looks bleak.

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