A Young Man's Jaunty Ride on the Road to Perdition
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
 Sometimes it's the playwrights trying to hit hardest who miss by a mile. "Slag Heap," a new play by Anton Dudley that chronicles the sorry lives of young hustlers in Britain, works pretty hard to inspire uncomfortable squirms, clucks of outrage and gasps of shock. But it is not easy to squirm, cluck or gasp when you're busy stifling yawns.
The play, which opened last night at the Cherry Lane Theater, is a distant, late-arriving cousin of a celebrated work of shock-o-rama theater by Mark Ravenhill, one that caused a stir, and typographical problems for many newspapers, in the late 1990's. (A prim London ticket agent I spoke to memorably called it "Shopping and Flower-Arranging.") Sex, drugs and violence are the familiar appetizer, main course and dessert in this bleak comedy, which evolves, all too predictably, into a morality tale weakly wagging a finger at British social policy.
Vincent Kartheiser, a scruffy pretty boy from television's "Angel," gives the play's most accomplished performance (indeed the only accomplished one) in the central role of Dave, a young hustler with an improbably fervent dedication to his craft. First seen on a street corner in Manchester, turning tricks along with his best pal, Ashley (a twitchy Polly Lee), Dave gets a taste of the higher life when a competitor, Fran (Brienan Nequa Bryant), invites him on a lucrative three-way with a scary character in a limousine.
 Mr. Dudley, an American playwright, wants us to be nonplussed and amused by the blithe manner in which these kids discuss the grim tricks of their trade, but he overdoes the devil-may-care attitudinizing. These penniless hustlers comport themselves with a perky enthusiasm that recalls the young-adult television comedy "Saved by the Bell," at least until the play darkens, inevitably, in the second act.
By this point Dave has made his way to London, where he lives in a seedy flat underneath a nightclub. He rhapsodizes about his cozy new home, his high-class clientele and his budding porn career in a manner that is meant to strike a poignant, pathetic note. But Mr. Dudley's writing strains so obviously for its effects that few will be moved when Dave, now reunited with Fran, descends into a maelstrom of drugs and kink. (He's led to ruin by the play's most ludicrous character, a French photographer played by Maggie Moore, with an accent that's a howler even in this circus of phonetic oddities.)
Mr. Dudley, meanwhile, descends into his own maelstrom of grungy lyricism, as Fran is awakened to the bitter truth about their poisoned lives and mournfully says, "Just once I want to be loved the way I need to be loved and not go through life like a knife through water." If only the play, slackly directed by Michael Morris, moved with a commensurate speed. That's assuming, of course, that aimless velocity is what Mr. Dudley's hazy image is intended to convey.
'Slag Heap'
By Anton Dudley; directed by Michael Morris; sets by Michael Brown; costumes by Michael Krass; lighting by Jeff Croiter; sound by Bart Fasbender; fight direction, Rick Sordelet; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; director of artistic development, Pamela Perrell; director of development, Matt Morrow; production stage manager, Kate Hefel; company coordinator, Dave Batan; production manager, Janio Marrero. Presented by the Cherry Lane Theater, Angelina Fiordellisi, artistic director; James King, managing director. At the Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street, Greenwich Village; (212) 239-6200. Through May 7. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
WITH: Vincent Kartheiser (Dave), Polly Lee (Ashley), Brienan Nequa Bryant (Fran), Janelle Anne Robinson (Donna), Alexander Flores (Darwin) and Maggie Moore (Natalie).
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