Visions of [Eugene] Ionesco, and especially of [Franz] Kafka, go through our minds as we watch this pitch-black comedy ["The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie"]. In a sense, "Benno" is Mr. Innaurato's "Metamorphosis"—man into bug; everyone is trying to squash Benno.

He is the butt of all insults. He tells—and is—the story. But what the play is really about is the decay of the American family. In comparison, Edward Albee's "The American Dream" and Bruce Jay Friedman's "A Mother's Kisses" seem almost wistful. "Benno" is a nightmare, dreamed by Lenny Bruce….

[Benno] is treated as an object, a slave, forced to observe the defilement of civilization. He is in torment, teetering out of existence. He will explode. Life can not contain him.

Beneath the fat, he is a saintly spirit. The only real human on stage, he is treated inhumanely. The playwright is serious about the "transfiguration." What if Christ were fat and ugly?

Not everyone should see this play. Many will be offended, even insulted, but it has a dramatic and a comic power…. At times, Mr. Innaurato's humor is itself a blunt instrument, but this is not a play one will easily forget.