One of the great things about going to the theater is that we can watch a man experience the pain and humiliation of slipping on a banana peel and we can feel completely free to chortle with delight. If we did this in real life, we'd be branded unfeeling sadists and our fellows would rightfully keep their distance.
The drama, as we have come to internalize its conventions, permits us this emotional distance. Arguably, our understanding of this conventional way of relating to actors begins at the very start of Western theater with the masked actors of ancient Greek drama. The masks served as both a disguise and a physical barrier, a way to further distance the players from the audience. The masks reappeared in Italy in the 16th century in a form called commedia dell'arte, where actors played specific, well-known character types while wearing masks that represented each type.
"A Company of Wayward Saints" is Lunacy Stageworks' current production about a traveling commedia dell'arte troupe, Le Compagnie de Santi Ostinati, searching for a way to finance its trip home. They seem to have found it when the Duke of Spokane (there are several local references, including a particularly timely one about cavorting with a wench in a bioswale) promises to pay for the trip if they will put on a show to his liking.
In the first part of the play we meet the performers, commedia dell'arte types all. There's Harlequin (Glenn McCumber) who serves as the master of ceremonies, Scapino (Samuel Holloway), his zany apprentice who juggles and somersaults. Both actors make their roles memorable by their ability to express character and emotion with their bodies.
There is Harlequin's wife Columbine (the grounded Heather Lundy Kahl) who keeps him in line, cranky old man Pantalone (Daniel R Somerfield), flirtatious Ruffiana (the delightful Chelsie Thomas), and Joe Clayton as Capitano, the blustery army officer.
Then there are the young lovers, Isabella (Corinne Elizabeth Christian) and Tristano (Chase McNeill). In the first part, they are not masked, but their expressions and movements are so mannered that they might as well be. She is preening and flirtatious, he is earnest and easily flustered. Finally, there is Dottore (Gregory Barrett), physician of Bologna (or "baloney," according to the cat calls of his troupe members), who wears a mortarboard cap and a mask with bushy eyebrows, and is a blowhard and a know-it-all.
Despite some very funny antics, there are problems in the troupe. Personal differences have arisen, and there is talk of breaking up. The central question becomes whether they can overcome their individual egos and function as a single unit to achieve the common goal of reaching home. (It should be noted that despite the storyline, director Sean B. Kelly has the actors working together flawlessly.)
The second part of the play holds an unnerving surprise: The actors have removed their masks -- and the conventional behaviors that functioned as masks. The audience is forced to confront a group of performers who have become much more like themselves. Suddenly, we are a little worried at having laughed at the banana peel.
In terms of the storyline, some time has passed. The silly young lovers have transformed. Isabella is now a woman in the throes of labor and Tristano is her anxious husband, outside the birth room, hearing his wife's primal moans and fearing everything that is unknown and beyond his control. The Dottore is now a wise and compassionate figure who counsels and reassures the father-to-be.
The scene is very moving, not just because it is powerfully acted, but because we have been put off balance emotionally. It's as if a taciturn and somewhat silly friend we've known for years suddenly breaks down and confesses all his tragic secrets. Removing the masks demonstrates the power these terrific actors hold over us. As an audience we follow them willingly, from masked to unmasked, from emotional distance to absorbed intensity.
Eventually, the troupe does manage to pull it together. In this way, not only does the troupe learn to form a community that works toward the common good, but that community is shared with the audience, who celebrate the good fortune of those on stage.
Note: The performance on March 5 ended with Gregory Barrett, the actor who played the Dottore, proposing to lighting designer Lindsay Bernal onstage. It was a delightful moment, made all the more interesting by its reflection of the central motifs of the play: Here was yet another unmasking that actually brought the actors completely into real life, and here was a celebration of renewal shared by us all.
-- Carol Wells
"A Company of Wayward Saints"
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Friday, March 18
Where: Sellwood Masonic Lodge, 7126 S.E. Milwaukie Ave.
Tickets: $15, lunacy
stageworks.org
stageworks.org
"A Company of Wayward Saints" is Lunacy Stageworks' current production about a traveling commedia dell'arte troupe, Le Compagnie de Santi Ostinati, searching for a way to finance its trip home. They seem to have found it when the Duke of Spokane (there are several local references, including a particularly timely one about cavorting with a wench in a bioswale) promises to pay for the trip if they will put on a show to his liking.
In the first part of the play we meet the performers, commedia dell'arte types all. There's Harlequin (Glenn McCumber) who serves as the master of ceremonies, Scapino (Samuel Holloway), his zany apprentice who juggles and somersaults. Both actors make their roles memorable by their ability to express character and emotion with their bodies.
There is Harlequin's wife Columbine (the grounded Heather Lundy Kahl) who keeps him in line, cranky old man Pantalone (Daniel R Somerfield), flirtatious Ruffiana (the delightful Chelsie Thomas), and Joe Clayton as Capitano, the blustery army officer.
Then there are the young lovers, Isabella (Corinne Elizabeth Christian) and Tristano (Chase McNeill). In the first part, they are not masked, but their expressions and movements are so mannered that they might as well be. She is preening and flirtatious, he is earnest and easily flustered. Finally, there is Dottore (Gregory Barrett), physician of Bologna (or "baloney," according to the cat calls of his troupe members), who wears a mortarboard cap and a mask with bushy eyebrows, and is a blowhard and a know-it-all.
Despite some very funny antics, there are problems in the troupe. Personal differences have arisen, and there is talk of breaking up. The central question becomes whether they can overcome their individual egos and function as a single unit to achieve the common goal of reaching home. (It should be noted that despite the storyline, director Sean B. Kelly has the actors working together flawlessly.)
The second part of the play holds an unnerving surprise: The actors have removed their masks -- and the conventional behaviors that functioned as masks. The audience is forced to confront a group of performers who have become much more like themselves. Suddenly, we are a little worried at having laughed at the banana peel.
In terms of the storyline, some time has passed. The silly young lovers have transformed. Isabella is now a woman in the throes of labor and Tristano is her anxious husband, outside the birth room, hearing his wife's primal moans and fearing everything that is unknown and beyond his control. The Dottore is now a wise and compassionate figure who counsels and reassures the father-to-be.
The scene is very moving, not just because it is powerfully acted, but because we have been put off balance emotionally. It's as if a taciturn and somewhat silly friend we've known for years suddenly breaks down and confesses all his tragic secrets. Removing the masks demonstrates the power these terrific actors hold over us. As an audience we follow them willingly, from masked to unmasked, from emotional distance to absorbed intensity.
Eventually, the troupe does manage to pull it together. In this way, not only does the troupe learn to form a community that works toward the common good, but that community is shared with the audience, who celebrate the good fortune of those on stage.
Note: The performance on March 5 ended with Gregory Barrett, the actor who played the Dottore, proposing to lighting designer Lindsay Bernal onstage. It was a delightful moment, made all the more interesting by its reflection of the central motifs of the play: Here was yet another unmasking that actually brought the actors completely into real life, and here was a celebration of renewal shared by us all.
-- Carol Wells
