Will Fink Why anyone would want to make a musical about mental illness and it’s debilitating effects on a family is one of life’s mysteries? And, if anyone really must have such darkness expressed in song, they best use serious baroque or other classical chamber music influences to express the pain, angst and agony of the mentally ill on and her dysfunctional family.
It is a piece that influenced the Expressionists, seventy-some years later; and this detail is not lost on the Hypocrites, who have made Woyzeck a piece of Epic Theatre, of Theatre of the Absurd, Theatre of Cruelty.
The author combines dirty, low-to-the-ground, gritty language with flowery metaphors and far-reaching similes. And if the play has you early on, you go along when it has lines like, “A good murder, a true murder, a beautiful murder, so beautiful as one can only ask to do, we’ve had none for so long.” But Pony doesn’t quite manage to do that.
This presents an interesting dichotomy with the music: the Baroque orchestration is so refined and meticulously structured, following strict guidelines; yet the action on stage is immense, tragic, emotional. There is an incredible marriage here between the Apollonian music and the Dionysian story.
Director Julie Ritchey loves the play as a director loves a play. She has burrowed deep and nestled in its earthy, root-filled warmth. She has eaten this play, drunk this play, dreamt and woken this play. And not without advantages. The moments she creates – crafts, more like – are heartfelt and complex.
The blending of forms (theatre, dance, concert, club, Commedia, circus . . .) is done as if by a person who’s never seen a play – or rather like this: by a person who has not been told what he can and cannot do, what is and is not theatre, what must and must not be so, according to the establishment. And what he has created is not only a compelling and innovative piece of theatre, but a show that would feel right at home in London’s Fringe scene or a cabaret in East Berlin.
The play opens with King George III, who only recently lost The Colonies, fighting Parliament to reassert his slightly flagging power. The Whigs are attempting to curtail the King’s powers, and implement their agenda, including the abolition of the West Indian slave trade. The Tories, led by George’s right-hand man, William Pitt the Younger, are looking for ways to bolster the King’s power.
The play deals with many topics: censorship, teenage pregnancy, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, violence, religion, fundamentalism, the place of art in society . . . . And yet, with this long laundry list of issues, the piece never gets bogged down by any of it.
This show is a nonpareil example of how to mount a modern version of this classic art form. Sade and Spearen do it right – period. If you want to see how Commedia dell’arte can be translated to a modern audience, how vibrant the art from still is, five hundred years after its inception, this is the piece to see.
It just seems almost cheap, somehow wrong, to sum up last night’s performance with mere words. It seems insufficient to recount, in any way, what happened without having your hands wrapped around the neck of the person you’re explaining it to.