Veteran director and Boulevard Theater founder Mark Bucher has thrown local audiences a screwball pitch. He has turned Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano into a hilarious farce. Whether or not Ionesco would approve, he undoubtedly would have admired Boulevard’s brave and hysterically funny treatment. After all, it sure beats one of Ionesco’s own suggestions: to have the audience mowed down by machine guns at the end of the play. (Thankfully, no one has attempted such a bloody ending.) Nothing of the sort happens here. This production has moved upstairs from Boulevard’s recent home in an east side church basement. The Bald Soprano is played in a small, upstairs chapel. In many respects, this is an ideal setting for this play: the chapel’s wrought-iron lights and curved doorways – not to mention an ornately carved wood mantle above an old fireplace – seem to reflect the play’s setting, which is suburban London. Flanking these features are a number of coordinating floor lamps and table lamps. They have been cozily assembled around upholstered chairs and a dining room table to suggest a living room/dining room. The entire play takes place in this location, owned by the Smiths. In the early 1950s, Ionesco made a name for himself writing what another writer called “the theatre of the absurd.” In many – if not all – of his plays, Ionesco’s dialogue trails off into meaningless comments. Non-sequiturs abound. One character starts to tell a story, and then is interrupted by another character before the story is completed. Although The Bald Soprano (1950) put Ionesco on the map, he is now better-known for later plays such as The Chairs (1952) and Rhinoceros (1959). A take-off of Ionesco’s The Lesson appeared Off-Off Broadway in 2014, at INTAR Theater. Prior to the opening curtain in Milwaukee, director Mark Bucher addresses the audience. “I hope you read the information in your playbill,” he says, adding, “Nothing you are going to see here makes any sense.”
The stage is soon occupied by the Smiths, a couple in their early 30s. They are wearing Victorian clothing. They babble inanely about dinner while Mr. Smith reads the paper. In fact, Mr. Smith’s response to many of his wife’s comments is a simple cluck of the tongue. Meanwhile, an unseen clock strikes considerably more than 12 times, causing Mrs. Smith to announce the hour as 9 p.m. As the Smiths, Zoe Schwartz and Mitch Weindorf create a realistic scene of home life in suburban London, the odd conversation notwithstanding.
The show is full of funny moments, but to this reviewer, the choicest one comes during the first scene between a second couple, the Martins. They have arrived late at the Smith’s house for dinner. The Martins (JJ Gatesmith and Sasha Katherine Sigel) prove to be as much an “odd couple” as their hosts. In this fashion, Ionesco attempts to convey the meaninglessness of conversation, if not life itself.
Of the six characters in the cast, Sigel stands out for having the best timing and intonation for Ionesco’s strange dialogue.
As Mrs. Martin, Sigel and Mr. Martin do not seem to even know each other when they arrive. Through a series of “coincidences,” Sigel and Gatesmith come to find out that they are actually husband and wife (this is decided when both admit to having a daughter with one red eye and one white eye). But even this certainty is undermined by another character, who whispers to the audience that the girl to which they are referring has a left red eye and white right eye. The other Martin has a daughter has eyes of a different coloring (right red eye and white left eye).
With admirable skill, Sigel manages to make her series of repetitive comments palatable. Each time she returns to repeat this sequence, she says the same words as if they had come out of her mouth for the very first time. She also uses deadpan facial expressions to make the back-and-forth dialogue even funnier.
Director Mark Bucher, who has shaped the work of countless newcomers over the years, makes sure that the frivolous ambiance of The Bald Soprano doesn’t get out of hand. To do this, he makes the entire cast acts in unison. They sometimes point accusing fingers in the same direction, or all of them laugh hilariously as if they had just heard a joke at a cocktail party. True to Ionesco’s form, no such joke is told to produce the laughter. Although the play has a number of pauses (as is written in the script), they are fairly brief in this production. The audience doesn’t have time to start squirming before the next scene begins.
During the chit-chat between the Smiths and the Martins, another couple suddenly discovers the presence of each other. As the maid opens the door (after several unsuccessful attempts), in strides a confident fire inspector (Hugh Blewett). He is recognized by the homeowners, who fear there is some problem in the neighborhood. Not to worry, reassures the fire inspector. He has some time prior to his next appearance at a real fire (albeit a small one) on the other side of town.
Unfortunately, Blewett’s late introduction doesn’t allow much time to make an impression on the audience. Not so for the maid (Hannah Klapperich-Mueller), who appears regularly with updates. True to her German upbringing, the blonde-haired maid sometimes claps her hands with the authority of a Valkyrie. (She, too, is a bit thrown by the regular chiming of the clock. Its timing and sound quality seem to change noticeably as the play progresses.) The maid’s behavior makes no more sense than one sees from the other characters. One moment she is docile and obedient; minutes later she is shouting out orders. In any case, one can expect something wonderfully wacky whenever the maid appears.
Under Bucher’s direction, this “Alice in Wonderland”-type world is more like eating an ice cream sundae than a plate of vegetables.
