Vicious and sweet, by turns

John Guare's strange, elliptical murder mystery harks back to the gritty, crime-infested New York of the 1970s. In this telling, Betty (Bethany Ford) arrives in the city with teenaged son Bert (Tony Williams). Their mission is to bring Betty's sister Rosalie (Ariel Pinkerton) back to bucolic Maine. Instead, they are drawn into a web of petty crime, pornography, morbid fascinations and, eventually, murder.

We never see Rosalie alive, her spirit of debauchery having been dispatched before the events take place (Pinkerton hovers over the proceedings like a glamorous, sympathetic ghoul, occasionally breaking into songs written by Guare). But she watches Betty with jaded understanding as the city takes over this Bangor sweetie mired in an affair with a married man and, perhaps, a continuation of Rosalie's nascent career in skin flicks.

The crux of the story, though, is Bert's murder by decapitation (of which we are made aware early on). Betty sits in a chair in a police station, berated by a police captain (John Lilleberg, uncertain in his role on opening weekend) trying to get her to confess. Betty swerves between self-pity and world-weary cynicism. Exactly where her true character lies becomes increasingly problematic.

Prufrock Theatre is a new company, with commendable ambition in tackling this self-contradictory, thrillingly complicated script (with a deft choice in employing director Leah Cooper to assist in interpreting it). The work here is credible, with the contours of Guare's emotional and intellectual maze rendered with enough force to communicate a jarring, discordant idea space.

Ford latches onto glimpses of Betty's borderline unhinged state, most ably in a scene with Williams that demonstrates their characters' near-unhealthy affection for each other. The scene culminates in the appearance of Durwood (David Beukema), a man-child from back home who offers Betty money, land and the possibility of rescue.

It all leads to ruin, though, and Ford and Pinkerton manage an unsettling scene in its aftermath (with the solving of Bert's murder a mere footnote). Guare closes off all avenues or redemption for Betty, save the most unlikely. Along the way, though, we're lacking the sort of distinctive, knowing performances required to make this material take flight. By turns vicious and sweet, this "Landscape" remains murky.

Quinton Skinner writes regularly about theater.