Understanding Evil, Sort Of

    Evil is a pirate, a louche, funny, thorny and horny fellow who does bad things: like blow up airplanes, seize ocean vessels to trade crew and cargo for ready cash, fly into tall buildings, bomb hospital ships, destroy books. Ask a pretty girl for a spanking.

   “I was born to make my way at the expense of others,†Pirate tells his prosecutors.

   He is playwright John Patrick Shanley’s idea of how bad things happen in the world.

   And Shanley’s idea of why.

   “I’m the nightmare you demanded in order to unleash your own murderous heart,†the quixotic and entertaining pirate tells the innocents. Or the somewhat innocents.

   In short, . . . but no. Not yet. First we have to take a very entertaining ride with Shanley and his antic characters.    

   Shanley, who wrote “Moonstruck,†“Doubt,†“Italian American Reconciliation†and much more, knows how to grab an audience. Here, in “Pirate,†he has moved stunningly into surreal ground with four actors and a number of mouthy, costumed characters premiering his latest work at Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater.

  First, of course, Shanley gives us Pirate, who appears out of a large suitcase from which he pulls on a bedraggled British redcoat. This fellow, played by the sly and brilliant Bill Camp, may be a menace. But he is also comic, naughty and hard to hate.

   “What’s wrong with you?†the exasperated prosecutor asks Pirate.

   “I could be a little bit taller,†he answers.

   Then we meet some of the collateral damage in Portia, played by Charlotte Pasrry. She, dressed in turn as a nurse, a lawyer, a stewardess and an actress playing the Virgin Mary in a passion play, is a repeated victim of various efforts to take Pirate down.

   And in Nick, played by Ivan Hernandez, we encounter a pilot, a military man, a prosecutor, maybe Mr. America. He accuses Pirate of killing Jews.

   Pirate answers: “Are you more honorable because you kill without regard to ethnicity?â€

   And, finally, there’s  Klaus, played by Michael Puzzo. He’s a driver, ticket taker on a train, international bureaucrat, always outfitted accordingly. And for 90 brilliant minutes they all argue about good and evil. No one wins, of course, because we are all evil. Some more than others, depending on the costume allotted us from the very beginning.

   The evil. They are always with us. They are also very entertaining.

“Pirate†is at the Powerhouse Main Stage at Vassar through Aug. 1.Tickets: 845-437-5599, or go to www.powerhouse.vassar.