Fool Me Once is like an evening spent around the campfire, telling tall tales. But my camp mates were never the caliber of storytellers as the cast and creators at American Folklore Theater. And that makes Fool Me Once -- which premiered in June at Peninsula State Park -- an intoxicating night under the stars, listening to stories. American Folklore Theater is a perfect setting for campfire tales. The theater, a decades old institution in Wisconsin's north woods, performs under the stars in Peninsula State Park. Fool Me Oncewas initially conceived by Jeffrey Herbst, AFT's artistic director. Herbst worked with Paul Sills, founder of Chicago's Second City and a Broadway director, to bring the idea to full fruition on stage. The night is well set from the opening bit, which includes the cast holding big letters and sounding out words, kind of like the old "Sesame Street" routine.
The 10-person ensemble tells eight tales during the hour-plus show. Well, they tell and act the stories. The show merges the two styles, creating a wonderful, extended storytime for the audience. Tales are drawn from different cultures and eras, but the "fool" always sits at the center of the tale. But calling them "fools" is not entirely accurate. Sure, the scatter-brained birds that run willy-nilly to the king (because the sky is falling, of course) in "Henny Penny" or the Packers-and-tunafish-surprise lover in "A Bag of Brains" fit perfectly into that glove. But the others? In "Hans in Luck," the protagonist is a man who makes a series of appalling bad trades. He starts with a nugget of gold as big as his head and ends with nothing. But through it all, he remains happy, because what he has just received is exactly what he wants.
In the "The Golden Goose," a young lumberjack who has never been let outside of the house before shows kindness and is rewarded with a golden goose. While he is wide-eyed and innocent, he isn't the fool. That title goes the horde of people of become stuck to him because of the goose. But the stream of fools give him a reward even better than the goose. Other stories continue in the same, clever vein. The characters usually get what they want, even if is not exactly what they expected. With this type of show, the performers have to be able to shift from character to character and story to story quickly. At the same time, they need to be able to keep the characters cleanly defined. It's something the AFT cast pulls off with seeming ease.
The set is minimal, consisting of a few chairs, a couple of giant building blocks and a handful of props. The actors mime the rest, but you can practically see the galloping horse in "Hans in Luck" or the creaking door that won't stay shut in "The Cowboy Who Came Out Only at Night." But the simplicity can be intoxicating. When the youngest brother emerges into the outside world for the first time in "The Golden Goose," the mix of joyful music and the bright acting lets the audience see every new wonder through his eyes.
