Double bill hard on the brain
Be prepared for a whole lotta nothingness down in the Black Hole
Tessa Vanderhart, Staff
Photo courtesy of the Black Hole Theatre Company.
The big guns of 20th century theatre are coming to the Black Hole Theatre this month, but don’t expect any easy answers from this double bill.
Starting Nov. 15, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit and Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano will bombast the University College theatre.
The best way to understand how the two productions fit together? Take a line from The Bald Soprano: “The truth lies somewhere between the two.”
David DeGrow, the director of Sartre’s “quintessential existentialist drama” (whatever that means!) said that the play is really not as pretentious as it would seem.
“This is sort of the everyman’s version of being and nothingness,” said DeGrow.
The play delves deep into the implications of the choices we make every day, something DeGrow is not necessarily concerned about — particularly in regards to his choice of breakfast food.
“I’m responsible for choosing to eat this garlic bread, in terms of my breath,” he said. However, he isn’t sure what the deeper existential implications of this choice may be, though the characters in his production grapple with Sartre’s visions of damnation and morality.
After all, there are no easy answers when it comes to garlic breath, or French existentialism.
And if the first play’s foray into affected nothingness doesn’t satisfy, there is always The Bald Soprano — which, according to the cast, is something like “Monty Python on steroids.”
Director Giorgia Severini described the play as “a tragedy of language,” noting that the French Ionesco was motivated to write the play as an expression of frustration at his attempts to learn English.
The result? A proliferation of language, as The Bald Soprano alternates between too much sense and none at all. Only the comic tension — and uncontrollable laughter — are constant.
Severini said that she prepared for the play by reading the playwright’s own notes: with Ionesco’s blessing, “anything goes.”
“With there being no right and wrong, there are no right choices — that’s the point,” said Gregory McLean, who plays Mr. Smith.
Who is Mr. Smith? Like the other six characters in the play, it doesn’t much matter: the universal appeal of each character is applicable to no one. In fact, Mr. Smith, along with his wife and houseguests, probably doesn’t even exist.
If this sounds bizarre, it’s purely intentional. The play is all about blurring the lines between silly and serious and taking the inane details of life to disproportionate epics.
And with a special appearance from the Fire Chief, the play takes unexpected hilarity and a perfectly executed anticlimax to impossibly intangible and utterly unsatisfying levels of achievement.
Still, the cast members are in agreement that the second bill is nothing to be afraid of.
“It could have been a terrifying existentialist comedy of menace, or a laugh riot . . . people are always going to be laughing at it,” said Jason Boissenneault, who plays Mr. Martin.
“As far as making people think, they shouldn’t hurt themselves if they do, because there’s not a lot there.”
The Black Hole has been equipped with a rake stage — a platform that slopes down from the back — for the double bill, which DeGrow said adds more dimension and perspective to both one-room, one-act plays. Not that either needs to feel more claustrophobic: with this staging, the productions project absurdity even more efficiently into the audience.
“It really separates the stage from the audience and makes it feel as if they’re stuck in a room,” DeGrow noted. “A small room.” A small room, with no exit.
DeGrow added that people often perceive so-called “thought plays” as inaccessible, but he hopes this year — with the BHTC double bill and heavier fare in the city’s theatre scene this fall — will change peoples’ minds. And he’s been doing a lot of thinking about it.
“I think I can act, I think I can do backstage,” said DeGrow. “And I’m not sure, but I think I can direct. We’ll see.”
It seems that all that thinking might lead to something interesting down in the Black Hole. Or, at the very least, some well-deserved pondering.
The double bill runs Nov. 15 to 19 and Nov. 22 to 26 at the Black Hole Theatre, located in the basement of University College. Tickets cost $9 for students and seniors and $11 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at the door or reservations can be made. For more information call the box office line at 474-6880.
