Austinist Theatre Review: The End of Words
What are words for? This is the question posited by two of the three one-act plays currently being delivered by The Coda Project at play! Theatre. All early works from the pen of Eugène Ionesco, father of the Theatre of the Absurd, the plays run in a kind of rotating repertory, with all evening performances including only two plays, and a 3.5-hour marathon of all three plays every Sunday afternoon. We bravely took on the entire set last Sunday, and found Coda's current, ambitious undertaking to be a mixed bag.
Of the three plays, Jack, or The Submission is included in every performance. It's a good call, as this is by far the most engaging, accessible of the three works. In short, a family verbally abuses the silent, pouting Jack (Adam X. Medina) for his unwillingness to marry the woman of their choice. The play essentially has two scenes: the family's interaction with Jack, and Jack's interaction with his fiancée. For the former, the lively, kinetic performances of the family members made the scene funny and worthy of interest. The actors convinced us to care what the characters were doing, even though many of their words were nonsense.
We were particularly impressed with the staging, which had as many as seven family members slowly circling Jack as he grimly frowned from his perch on a low-slung office chair. Sister Jacqueline (Michelle Keffer) was especially funny, with pouts and implorations that somehow never got old, but all of the actors were in good form, with nicely developed characters whose actions were somehow random and meaningful all at once. For this, we tip our hats to director Eric Virkkala, who clearly has an eye for clever yet purposeful blocking, a well-maintained, appropriate pace, and stylized characterizations.
Once the orchestrated chaos cleared the stage, the energy ramped down to a delicious simmer as Jack and his fiancée Roberta (Elizabeth Rast) took each other on. Rast was fearless and sexy in her seduction of Jack, and Medina responded appropriately. Because the first scene was a success, we wanted the lovers to connect in the second. When they did, we were happy...despite the fact that the language had disintegrated to the point where the only word used was "cat". Absurd indeed, and a great introduction to this style of theatre.
The second play was The Bald Soprano, Ionesco's best-known work and one of the most performed plays in France. Ready for more absurdism after a short break, we enjoyed this piece as well. Although the sound design was clunky—a problem throughout the last two productions, with a jarring mix of contemporary music and overly identifiable sound effects ripped from pop culture that did little more than preoccupy us—Zac Crofford's set made us immediately aware that we were in a well-appointed British home. We appreciate spare-yet-functional scenic design, and this was a fine example.
In short, the play features the meeting of two well-to-do couples for drinks and conversation, plus comical interruptions from a maid and a fire chief. Here, Ionesco uses the slimmest of plots as an excuse to tinker with language, and it was fascinating to listen to the different rhythms created by questions asked and ignored, questions asked and answered, phrases repeated again and again, and a genealogy of Biblical proportions recited without pause. Once again all actors created amusing, well-drawn characters and stuck to their choices admirably. We were less engaged, but one of the purposes of the play seemed to be the futility of lightweight, pre-dinner conversation, so there was intentionally less to be engaged by. As a whole, the performance was more like watching an experiment with language than taking in a deep, meaningful story.
Which brings us to the last production of the afternoon; according to the program, The Chairs is Ionesco's "finest and...first truly 'poetic' attempt at writing for the stage." Perhaps three absurdist plays in one sitting is one too many. Perhaps more than three hours of absurdism eventually sucks the brain of all energy required to process so many jumbled up words. Regardless, we were unable to give even a shred of attention or patience to this final performance. The gist of the work is that Old Man and Old Woman have been sitting around for ages and ages, waiting to die or may be already dead...it's never quite clear. From the start, we understood that Old Man had a very important message to deliver, and from the start we had zero interest in what that message might be. David G. Robinson's Old Man was shaky and doddering, which is about what you'd expect from an old man, but we got nothing more than that from his shrill, whiny performance. Stacey Glazer's Old Woman had a little more oomph, but she couldn't rescue the play from mind-numbing tedium.
Under Rocky Hopson's direction, the production had no ebb and flow. The excitement that should've presumably built leading up to the arrival of the first guest—Old Man and Old Woman hold a lecture to deliver Old Man's message—didn't exist. Once guests started arriving, it wasn't surprising or silly that they were invisible. It wasn't even particularly interesting. It just was. Old Man and Old Woman addressed guests who were seemingly eight feet tall—both actors played things this way—which we found distracting and confusing. Finally, while the actors—particularly Glazer—did an adequate job of showing via their movements that the room was getting overly full with each new guest's arrival, there wasn't enough physicality or energy in their performances to give us the idea that the there were so many people packed on stage that the scene was nearing mayhem. When the actors are the only ones who can see all the invisible people, it's their job to make sure we know just how many invisible people their are...and in this they failed.
Nevertheless, as we've mentioned, it's an ambitious undertaking to stage three absurdist theatre plays, and on the main The Coda Project succeeds. With only one weekend remaining, we'd suggest that anyone interested in seeing the two solid productions of a not-often-performed theatre style consider taking this one in.
The End of Words
Thursday–Sunday, 11/2–11/5
play! Theatre [map]
8pm Th/Fr/Sa, 3pm Su
Tickets by calling 468-5546
