Playwright: Bertolt Brecht
At: Speaking Ring Theatre Company at Holy Covenant United Methodist Church, 925 W. Diversey Pkwy.
Phone: ( 312 ) 458-9374; $15
Runs through: May 14
The plot of Bertolt Brecht's play has enough adventure, intrigue and romance for an Indiana Jones film festival: In the confusion of a government coup, the deposed ruler's infant son is rescued by a fleeing servant-girl. She hides him, often at great peril to them both—at one point, crawling over a fragile bridge high above a chasm in order to escape pursuing armies. After the unrest has been stilled, the governor's widow demands the return of the child she deserted in the course of her own evacuation. Will the judge award custody to the rich and powerful dowager, or to the brave commoner and her faithful war-veteran fiancé?
Thrills, chills and tears galore! But Brecht's aesthetic mandates that audience response be kept contemplative, rather than visceral. Classroom-trained actors typically address this oxymoronic precept by adopting a frozen-lipped minimalism devoid of expression, emotion, expression or anything else commanding attention. Director Jennifer Leavitt, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach, achieving the desired Alienation Effect by showering us with spectacle.
We enter the auditorium to find the Speaking Ring Company personnel engaged in rowdy dancing and boisterous singing, high-speed verbal-reflex games, juggling, acrobatics, exhibition rope-jumping and other adrenaline-pumping activities. After a short prologue, the players stage us a parade, complete with drums, brass horns and waving banners. Over the next 2-1/2 hours, we get synchronized percussion concertos, orchestrated spoken-word chorales, human jungle-jims representing mountains over which our heroine climbs, cascading rivers of cerulean silk, commedia character-masks, kendo drills, and an unceasing stream of inventive stage business. Oh, and from time to time, the actors deviate from their characters to comment on their own concerns—another Brechtian practice, here executed with impressive ease.
Some individual performances distinguish themselves—Chantelle Daniel as the steadfast maiden, Joseph M. Adamczak as her loyal swain, Paul Fagen as the corrupt magistrate and Dana Tretta as our capable narrator. But what rivets our attention throughout Brecht's sometimes heavy-handed observations is the unflagging animation exhibited by an athletic ensemble working together toward a finale with energy left to dance us to the door.