A Behanding in Spokane’: It’s a giggle

Long before we’d decided to visit New York for spring break, we’d heard about this play called “A Behanding in Spokane.” Seems it was a play written by the guy who’d written and directed the movie “In Bruges,” which was one of my favorite films of 2008.

So when we arrived on Monday, we immediately started our search for tickets. Mary Pat found some, half price, at the TKTS office in Brooklyn . That was yesterday. And today we took the train into Manhattan to see the show.

What, then, did we see? A 90-minute, exactly, absurdist comedy about a one-handed guy (Christopher Walken) searching for the hand that he lost 47 years before. Seems he was in Spokane, at the time, and - as he explains - he was kidnapped by four “hillbilly” dudes who held him down so that a train could cut off his hand.

We learn this because he explains it to the “receptionist” (Sam Rockwell) of the second-rate hotel where he is staying. He has just shot somebody trying to get out of the room’s closet, and the reception guy - who hates being called a “receptionist” - has come to check out the noise.

Pretty soon he leaves, and our one-handed guy is greeted by a young woman (Zoe Kazan) who bursts in, wondering where her boyfriend is. Who just happens to be the guy (Anthony Mackie of”The Hurt Locker” fame) who got shot in the closet.

Only he’s not dead. Just scared to the point of fainting. Which becomes a theme, as far as anything does become a theme in “A Behanding in Spokane.” Because what becomes clear fairly quickly, as the one-handed guy threatens the couple with shooting, immolation and worse, is that nothing about this play is thematic, makes any kind of sense or is anything more than a giggle.

It’s an entertaining giggle, for sure. Walken and Rockwell are always fun to watch, Mackie has an abundance of talent and Kazan … well, she does have a family name to bank on. Though not much else. Overall, though, a giggle is all the play is.

So we had fun at “A Behanding in Spokane.” Got a nice poster and even a baseball cap. But I’m not sure I’d be making a special trip to New York to take in a performance.

I’d wait until Interplayers puts it on. Probably won’t take long. Though I doubt Walken will make the trip.

There’s not that much gold in the Spokane River to get him to the real Spokane.

Below : An ad for the new play “A Behanding in Spokane.”