Playwright: Matt Engle. At: Factory Theater at Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston. Phone: 866-811-4111; $20. Runs through: Aug. 2
The only place in the United States where you'll find a Renaissance Faire and a Wild West Show anywhere near one another is the Shakopee Casino resort district outside of Minneapolis—not that real-world logic has ever presented a problem to the artists of Factory Theater. Nor is the premise for RenFaire: A Fistful Of Ducats simply a pretext for Mel Brooks-homage battles-of-anachronism—although we get plenty of dueling-fantasies humor before Ewoks, penguins and Harry Potter pop in for some ringside commentary—but also a celebration of the very activities it mocks.
Our protagonist is a young, female, stage combat-trained actor who is hired, after an appearance as Viola in Twelfth Night, for a cavalier-styled variety act. She replaces the most recent casualty in a line of theatrical swordsmen injured by the star player—appropriately named Hero—who seems to have lost his nerve since his original partner defected to the Wild West Show camped across the interstate. The latter enterprise is bossed by a jingoistic flag-thumper incensed at the Eurocentric mythologizing of his neighbors and the obstacle they represent to his plans for commercial expansion. Will enlightened-age tolerance triumph over frontier justice? Will rapiers vanquish six-guns? Will the victory go, not to the mighty, but to the pure in heart?
Factory Theater has forged a reputation for spectacle no less impressive for its slapstick tone, and co-fight directors Matt Engle and Jennifer Pompa ( veterans of the Navy Pier pirate show ) do not disappoint. Over the play's fast-paced 90 minutes, we are treated to swashbuckling swordplay, saloon-style brawls ( complete with piano accompaniment ) , commedia punch-ups with precision sound effects belying their patent artificiality, a transformation scene ( à la the Incredible Hulk ) when a meek vending-wench rallies—with the aid of some psychedelic magic potions—to the rescue of her cross-dressing comrade, and an astonishingly inventive solution to the imbalance of firepower between the warring factions.
It's easy to dismiss this brand of live-action cartoon as facile frivolity. Underneath its low-comedy antics, however—dialogue from 'Raging Bull' and 'Steel Magnolias' rendered in 15th-century idiom, the Henry VIII-impersonator's alleged priapal profligacy, liturgical paeans to the music of Jethro Tull—lies a reverence for the festivals providing modern citizens, mired down in mundane contemporary mediocrity, an opportunity to escape into a universe of nostalgic fancy.