Perversion at the 13th St Rep-An Absurdist Anti-War Play that is a Bomb

Perversion playing at the 13th St Rep. Theater is an ambitious attempt to parody contempt for mankind's futile search for meaning & self-immolation.  The prescient production parallels poisonous attacks against innocent civilians which invokes devastating continual counterattacks.  The aim of this misbegotten play should be commended for its intellectual intention.  Tragically, the entire staging is so repugnant as to discredit the loftier aim of a creative correction to the insanity in searching for humanity.  The play is laden with obvious cliched commentaries "The bombings are on the other side of the world so it doesn't matter here," are cringeworthy.  The two "meat inspectors" Quibble & Scar are so onerous & irritating that their pontificating on absurdism resounds as pointless.  Their twisted double-talk becomes extremely irritating.  Vardaman, a young boy with brutal behavior (played by a ridiculous Irina Kaplan) is repulsive.  The other characters in the play, including Major Importance a non-plussed omnipresent video recorder (played by an earnest Robert Lewis) are mostly resigned observers of the perpetual mayhem.   The program notes writer/dir Judson Blake extrapolated this from a novel he's hoping to publish.  There are worthy soliloquies that can be sorted from his play for their erudite nihilist & solipsistic philosophies.  Needless, these moments are deeply buried under a terribly flawed absurdist wasteland.