Playwright: Meghan Strell, Larry Underwood & Charlie Levin
At: Local Infinities at National Pastime Theater, 4139 N. Broadway
Phone: ( 312 ) 804-1895: $20
Runs through: June 1
Calling all readers who are hot wax fetishists: have I got a show for YOU! And just in time for IML, too. The remount of Wax & Wayne ( first seen briefly last year in a festival ) presents two actors, a musician and 200 lbs. of liquid wax in a wordless 65-minute performance piece in which Pygmalion meets The House of Wax, with a soupcon of clowning thrown in.
The work opens with a toupee-topped artist entering his studio, where a full-size female wax statue stands on a pedestal. The artist brings with him grapes, an apple and a wax-wrapped cheese, which are the brightest objects in the show's color pallet. As he attempts to work the apple into the palm of the statue's hand, first a finger breaks off, and then the entire hand, thereby bringing the statue to life. Bit by bit, she breaks the wax that completely encases her, discovering her mouth, her eyes, her body until she stands before the artist a fully fleshed young woman. She's nearly naked, too, and as she dons the artist's clothes bit by bit, a role reversal takes place, thereby fulfilling the show's punning title as one waxes as the other wanes.
The power exchange is predictable from fairly early on. The surprises are in the playing out, and in the ending in which the artist—stripped to his skivvies—is given a full-body immersion in a double drum of hot wax to create another life-size and lifelike statue. Yes, the wax is real and hot and in constant use in the show.
The brave performers, Meghan Strell and Larry Underwood, are accompanied throughout by composer Tom Howe, who uses bicycle spokes for percussion, rubs wine glasses filled with water, and plays French music on saws of several sizes ( actually, the best saw-bowing I've ever heard ) . The visuals of his work are as interesting as the sounds, and add a great deal to the magical moonlight mood of the whole ( lighting by Ben Spicer and John Musial, who also staged the work; 'Clair de Lune' by Debussy ) .
I must confess that, as a critic, I have no basis of comparison for this work. I cannot say that it's better or worse than the last liquid wax act I caught. Wax & Wayne is a curiosity both enterprising and entertaining. It's not profound, although its greatly atmospheric presentation may have you hunting for meanings that aren't there. The theater troupe, Local Infinities, bills itself as offering 'visual theater,' and Wax & Wayne certainly fulfills the mandate. So go to be amazed, go to be amused. Warning: don't try this at home, unless you are master or mistress of a wax dungeon.
