Reviving by reading: The Madowman of Chaillot (Readers’ Ensemble Company Summer Festival 2009)
Reviewed by Rich Grey (outerstage.com)
The expression “history is written by the winners” can be interpreted for theater productions as “works that are affordable are remembered.” Encores got a hold on countless musicals teetering on the brink of obscurity and gave them life, now the Readers’ Ensemble Company does the same for straight comedies and dramas. This new group dedicates itself to finding and presenting, in de-constructed format, works that are either not done or can’t afford to be done anymore. The latter case fits their second entry in a four-play series – The Madwoman of Chaillot. We’ve all heard of this play, we may have seen it in a university setting, but when was the last time you saw a 24-character play performed on, or directly off, Broadway?
Director J. Michaels gave himself every obstacle in this Jean Giraudoux surreal comedy written as a response to World War II. A staged reading is tricky – daunting when done by two-dozen actors. He added performance elements (a dancing deaf mute, masque work – albeit very simple, and touches of modernization like a Spanish-speaking flower seller and a yuppie stock broker). His gamble paid off as the evening yielded a fine show.
The play opens in cartoon fashion with a President, Baron, Broker, and Prospector (Nick Fondulis, M. Alan Haley, John Stillwaggon, and Michaels himself, respectfully) gleefully chatting about their wealth, how to get more, and the middle and lower classes whom they disdain. Fondulis supplies us with an excellent mixture of mustache twirling villainy while keeping things real enough to make us think of every bank president across the country today, he is complimented by Haley’s confused aesthete of a baron, willing to sell his name to make money. The electricity was turned-up tenfold by Stillwaggon’s high-speed banter and game show host smile as the broker. J. Michaels added to the humor as a humorless old hermit prospector, deadpanning around the three corporate stooges.
They are greeted by the titular character, Countess Aurelia, the Madwoman of Chaillot. The casting choice was spot-on with Sheila Mart. Ms. Mart’s majestic presence in a tiny frame epitomized the character. Her staccato delivery fooled the audience by alternating between doddering and ingenuous. This allowed us to follow her down her rabbit hole (literally) to the play’s surreal conclusion.
There are also lovers (of course). The innocent, not-from-these-parts, Irma (played by Brianna Carlson-Goodman) and the repentant juvenile Pierre (Jim deProphetis). Carlson-Goodman and deProphetis played off of each other well, sharing innocence and pain, love and loss. Carlson-Goodman’s Act I monologue was a refreshing moment of clarity, while deProphetis’ scenes with Aurelia were charming and engrossing.
The financial wizards are forced to do battle with a cacophony of tradesmen and vagrants including a sassy waitress (played with great vigor by Sara Minisquero), a Latina flower seller (played in Spanish by Jessica Real-Mohr, whose gestures allowed even the most dense to understand her dialog), a lunatic foot doctor (Tracy Lipson doing her best impression of a 3 a.m. infomercial), two wacky policemen (Josh Silverman, hilarious as a new cop on the beat, and John Payne, truly funny and commanding as an old-fashioned beat cop complete with brogue) all led by an urban Ragpicker, played by Lorenzo Valoy. Valoy’s high energy and inventive delivery as the bearer of bad news in Act I and fire and brimstone channeling of all the evil of the world in Act II were high-points of the evening.
Act II brings a group of new characters. A sewer man (played with surreal joy by Robert Saunders) who thinks he’s a stand-up comic; three other madwomen: Constance (Dana A. Iannuzzi), whose choice of puppet dog over invisible dog – how it is normally played – was inspired; Gabrielle (Carla Kelly), an innocent chanteuse with an overactive libido, whose facial expressions and strange noises were a source of great humor, and the commanding Josephine (queenly played by Theresa Chow). Chow manages to make some of the play’s most absurd dialog sound totally logical.
Wide-eyed, tattered, and diminutive, teenager Adele Wendt – a trained ballerina – danced her lines (another inspired touch) as the deaf mute, adding a new dimension to this reading. Her frenetic “conversations” with Irma were a witty diversion and her Act I “ballet” (choreographed by Joyce A. Adams) became the play’s parable – the smallest flower can have the deepest soul.
Producers Dana A. Iannuzzi and Justin Flagg are to be commended for making possible a series that includes a rare George Bernard Shaw one-act (last week’s Press Cuttings), a Russian work made famous by Lon Chaney (next week’s He Who Gets Slapped) and rising star Lynn Nottage’s African-American drama, Intimate Apparel, which closes the festival. The small, warm theater chosen for the presentations might be an indication of an austere budget – a fitting parable as to why certain plays are allowed to vanish.
The festival is at University of the Streets on East 7th Street.
For more details log on to readersensemblecompany.org
Originally published at http://outerstage.com/2009/07/reviving-by-reading-the-madowman-of-chaillot-readers-ensemble-company-summer-festival-2009/
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Tags: Madwoman of Chaillot, Reviews
On Monday, July 27, 2009 at 7pm, I performed in a staged reading of Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot (French title La Folle de Chaillot). Today I’d like to talk a bit about the performance space, and my observations on it.
This a play is a poetic satire which Giraudoux wrote in 1943, but it was first performed in 1945, after his death.
This production was directed by Jay Michaels for the Readers Ensemble Company (REC). The REC is run by Justin Flagg and Dana A. Iannuzzi. It was performed at The University of the Streets at130 East 7th St. in New York City just off of Tompkins Square Park.
Anyhoo!
Arriving at 5:30pm I sought out the entrance to the University of the Streets. It was a little hard to find as on the otuside it is little more than a single doorway between storefronts. I worried that audience members would have trouble locating the space. Beyond the door was a tiny lobby and a narrow old staircase that wound its way to the performance space on the second floor.
At first I passed it by. The door didn’t say “University of the Streets” on it, but I didn’t go far before backtracking and spotting a REC sign which pointed the correct way.
Upon entering I nearly collided with John Payne’s wife. John is a fellow Long Island actor whom I met in recent months. He would be playing the part of the (Police) Sergeant in this production. We exchanged greetings before continuing on our separate ways.
Beyond the entrance there was a small cramped lobby and ticket counter, then, beyond a curtain, was the performance space. Here on the second floor it made up the corner of the building overlooking Tompkins Square Park and 7th Street. There were 3 or 4 tiers of movable seats around an unraised performance area. A piano and some music stands took up a portion of the floor.About half the cast was already present.
One of the first things I noticed was the heat and humidity. It was a little uncomfortable, and was only bound to become more so as the evening progressed. A large window air conditioner was in the wall in one corner, but its effects could hardly be felt beyond the 4 seats around it. Later in the evening, before the show, two fans were positoned to circulate the air. One by the Ac, and another on the performance floor. The latter was bit noisy, and would doubtless have to be turned off during the show.
Of course, I worried about audience members dealing with the heat. The actors were here to work, and would put up with it very well, but I worried about an audience that would have to sit through an unfamiliar show. The early arrivers would obviously take the most comfortable seats near the AC, and other after them would try to take the next best spots. Then there was the possibility that during intermission people might try to take seats other than the ones they had during act one. Fortunately, everything went well in that regard. Everyone put up with the heat, and the show, being enjoyed by all, certainly helped.
Tags: jay michaels, jean giraudoux, la folle de chaillot, readers ensemble company, the madwoman of chaillot, university of the streets
