Ben
Brantley

January 29, 2016

Just how dark do you like it? The British dramatist Philip Ridley, whose excellent “Dark Vanilla Jungle” and “Tonight With Donny Stixx” are in repertory at Here, is notorious for testing the palates of theatergoers who think they prefer their humor black, strong and bitter. His lurid tragicomedies — like his futurist shocker “Mercury Fur,” staged by the New Group last year — typically begin in shadow and progress steadily into a starless midnight, where any available light is often reflected in pools of blood. Mr. Ridley’s characters commit acts of barbarism that Quentin Tarantino probably hasn’t even imagined. And I’ve seen people bolt from a Ridley play with their hands clamped over their mouths. That Mr. Ridley is also a writer of uncommon, lyrical delicacy may sound like a contradiction. But what’s most unsettling in his work isn’t its violence, but the seductive voices of those who perpetrate it. He endows his blighted characters with an instinctive gift for poetry that gropes for patterns in a random and unforgiving universe.