At the same time that the separation of church and state is under severe threat from Christian nationalists like Franklin Graham, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo, an article by Regina Rini in The New York Times warns that "Deepfakes Are Coming. We Can No Longer Believe What We See."
Humorist Andy Borowitz (whose brief and hilarious columns appear in The New Yorker) recently wrote that "Trump Says He Has Made Deal To Add Hawaii as Fiftieth State." Following his recent interview with Jonathan Swan from Axios, Emmeline Pankhurst tweeted "Jared Kushner looks like if a damp saltine cracker turned into a real boy." The continued warping of our senses makes it all too easy to wonder if the United States has fallen down a hole in the ground and found itself in Wonderland.
As those who have not yet succumbed to the Trump administration's gaslighting and attempts at brainwashing struggle to discern what is real and what is not, their questions are shouted down with cries of "Fake news!" As stage director Giovanna Sardelli notes:
“In October of 2016, Rajiv Joseph and I were in Moscow on a theatre project when we decided to extend our trip to Belgrade and Sarajevo, hoping to learn more about Gavrilo Princip (the young man whose ‘shot heard around the world’ was the spark that ignited World War I). In the taxi from the Belgrade airport we asked our driver what he thought of Gavrilo Princip. He lit up as he turned around to show us a Gavrilo medallion hanging around his neck. Gavrilo was his hero, he told us, as if describing a rock star. As we walked to Gavrilo’s bar, Rajiv and I pondered how young men become radicalized and asked ourselves how patriotism morphs into fanatic nationalism. We worried that the question was being answered before our eyes in the groups of displaced men and boys huddled with their few belongings and even fewer prospects.”
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| Scott Coopwood (Archduke Franz Ferdinand) and Luisa Sermol (Duchess Sofie) are the targets of Adam Shonkwiler (Nedeljko), Stephen Stocking (Gavrilo), and Jeremy Kahn (Trifko) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
“We drank in the Belgrade bar where Gavrilo and his comrades had plotted; a shabby, silently rough place that has changed little in the course of a century. Profiles of Gavrilo hung on the wall along with his old report card. Three days later in Sarajevo, our tour guide, Riyad, took us through the events of that fateful day and all the ways in which the plot failed. Certainly, it should not have succeeded. Yet all the players inevitably bumbled and blundered their way towards each other and their awful fate. Finally Riyad turned, looked at us, and concluded the tour with the words ‘I mean, these guys, it was like a farce.’ I’ve since used Riyad’s remarkable tour as a reminder to pay attention to those who seem too insignificant or ridiculous to have any impact on our lives. How easily they may change history.”Two recent productions by Bay area theatre companies begged a question far more powerful than the Memorex ad: "Is this performance about a terrorist plot, is it a crazy comedy, or is it just a timely relic from the Theatre of the Absurd?"
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In August of 2016, Joseph and Sardelli had the opportunity to participate in the annual New Works Festival produced by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (where both artists have worked very happily in the past). Their new play, Archduke, had its official world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in April 2017. This month, the play has returned to TheaterWorks Silicon Valley for the Northern California premiere of a revised version. As dramaturg Katie Dai notes:“Archduke evolved from an idea for a very different play. Originally, Joseph set out to write about a pair of composers (one of them the brother of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassin). As he wrote, he found the story of the assassin to be much more compelling, and so the composers went by the wayside. Instead, Joseph crafted a tale about the radicalization of young men, offering backstories for historical figures few have sought to understand. Somehow, he managed to find comedy in its telling. Typically, the playwright lays down his or her pen once a play has opened. But Joseph wasn’t quite finished with Archduke -- or maybe Archduke wasn’t quite finished with him. Although the Center Theatre Group production received great acclaim, Theatreworks’ regional premiere features a new script that Joseph has continued to revise while in residence during rehearsals.”Set in 1914 with scenes in Zemun, Belgrade, Sarajevo, and points in between, the first act of Joseph's play focuses on three pathetically confused losers. Each has received a diagnosis of tuberculosis from the same doctor and been told that there is a job waiting for him if he shows up at a seemingly abandoned warehouse on a particular date and at a precise time to receive further instructions from "a guy."
- Gavrilo (Stephen Stocking) is obsessed with the fact that he is smaller than most men and, when informed that he is now a "lung-er" with only a few months to live, despairs that he may never find meaning in life.
- Nedeljko (Adam Shonkwiler) is a hot-headed young man easily aroused to violence who dreams of such comforts as sandwiches and finding out what it feels like to be with a woman.
- Trifko (Jeremy Kahn) is a natural bully who thinks he knows more than the other two men, but really doesn't.
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| Stephen Stocking (Gavrilo), Jeremy Kahn (Trifko), and Adam Shonkwiler (Nedeljko) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
In Act II, the three young men fall under the influence of a former military officer and questionable hero named Dragutin “Apis” Dimitrijevic (Scott Coopwood), whose charismatic and somewhat crazy personality slowly manages to convince Gavrilo, Nedeljko, and Trifko that all of their personal woes (including their tuberculosis) have been caused by the Archduke and his powerful cronies.
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| Scott Coopwood (Apis) rallies three hapless insurgents (Stephen Stocking, Jeremy Kahn, and Adam Shonkwiler) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
One of the key factors in wooing the young men into an assassination plot is the lure of the hearty food that will be prepared during their training by Apis's servant, Sladjana (Luisa Sermol), a woman who sees right through her employer and is full of practical tips on how to use garlic as a secret weapon.
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| Stephen Stocking (Gavrilo) and Luisa Sermol (Sladjana) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
During a dream sequence, Gavrilo imagines hearing the words of the female skeleton he saw in his doctor's office, once again advising him: "Don't do it." Fearing that a bag of garlic-drenched animal guts given to him by Sladjana might be cursed, he throws it into a furnace and joins Nedeljko and Trifko on their fateful journey to Sarajevo.
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| Stephen Stocking as Gavrilo in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
In several of his plays, Rajiv Joseph has shown a deft talent for mining comic gold from the poverty and misery of underdogs who are usually men with little or no power to rise above their circumstances. Act II shows how easily gullible young minds and appetites can be manipulated by someone with more sinister intent. And yet, while riding aboard a train (the ultimate adventure for Nedeljko) where they can eat as much food as they wish and have long hours to ruminate on how their lives could be more interesting, the playwright demonstrates how easily the taste of something as simple as a sandwich (or being ridiculed for weakness) can seduce clueless young men into performing brazen acts of violence.
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| Adam Shonkwiler (Nedeljko), Stephen Stocking (Gavrilo) and Jeremy Kahn (Trifko) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Despite the camaraderie that develops between Gavrilo, Nedeljko, and Trifko, it is Gavrilo who finally ends up pulling the trigger on a shocked Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, thus catapulting world events into lasting chaos. Sardelli has coaxed beautifully layered performances from her five-actor ensemble, with Luisa Sermol's Sladjana giving a master class in how to milk the most laughs from the fewest lines. The men all give stellar performances which keep the audience riveted in their seats.
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| Adam Shonkwiler (Nedeljko) and Jeremy Kahn (Trifko) in a scene from Archduke (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
TWSV's production benefits immensely from the handsome set design by Tim Mackabee, costumes by Fumiko Bielefeldt, eerie lighting by Dawn Chiang, and
sound design by Theodore J. H. Hulsker. Some enterprising regional theatre company might want to consider building a season or festival around a theme about how political assassinations in different cultures have changed the course of history. Likely choices include Archduke, Julius Caesar, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, Execution of Justice, and Stephen Sondheim's Assassins. Just saying...
Performances of Archduke continue through June 30 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts (click here for tickets).
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Back when I was in high school, I had the great fortune of attending a performance of Eugène Ionesco's controversial play, Rhinoceros. The cast for the 1961 Broadway production included Eli Wallach as Berenger, Anne Jackson as Daisy, Jean Stapleton as Mrs. Boeuf, and Zero Mostel (who won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his landmark performance) as Jean. In 1973, Tom O'Horgan directed a screen adaptation of Ionesco's play in order to capture Mostel's characterization on film. In the movie version, Gene Wilder portrayed Stanley (Berenger) and Karen Black appeared as Daisy.As I sat in the Longacre Theatre (grateful for the twofer that helped me afford a cheap seat), I knew nothing about the Theatre of the Absurd or what we have since come to know as the herd instinct. But I could easily recognize a great performance when I saw one. The following clips contain a segment of the film wherein Mostel begins to turn into a rhinoceros. In the theatre, his transformation (without any props) was absolutely terrifying.
Using Derek Prouse's translation, the American Conservatory Theater is presenting Rhinoceros in a production originally directed by Frank Galati at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida. Ionesco's play begins outside a cafe in a small provincial village in France as the prissy, pompous Gene (Matt DeCaro) meets his friend, Berenger (David Breitbarth), for some coffee and conversation. With the aid of the exceptional sound design by Joseph Cerqua, their rendezvous is interrupted by the sight of not one, but two rhinoceroses who seem to belong to a growing herd of wild beasts living just outside their town.
Having done extensive research on Ionesco, Galati (who portrayed Gene in a production of Rhinoceros at Northwestern University) recalls that:
“In his essays, Ionesco wrote about how he and his girlfriend had a circle of friends in Romania and France in the 1930s who became Nazis one by one. He couldn’t believe that intellectual men and women (really smart people that he loved and admired) acquiesced -- that they kept their mouths shut, they went along, they were complicit, they were criminal. Observing that terror move through a community like a contagion was the kernel of the idea that led to Rhinoceros.The play is a canary in a mineshaft. It’s an alarm call about propaganda and what propaganda does to create enclaves of power. The play does not take sides (it revels in ambiguity and irony), but logic is whiplashed back and forth with such alacrity that you’re dizzy.”
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| Matt DeCaro (Gene) and David Breitbarth (Berenger) in a scene from Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Using sets and costumes designed by Robert Perdziola with lighting by Chris Lundahl, ACT's production captures the town's transition from a quiet little community into an area overrun with fear. As Wikipedia notes:
"Originally coined by theatre critic Asher Nahor in his review of the play in 1962, the term 'rhinoceroization' became colloquial in Israel for getting swayed in a nationalistic fervor, or any other general sentiment. Another use of 'rhinocerisation' was by Israeli historian Jean Ancel in his 2002 book, The History of the Holocaust In Romania, to describe how Romanian intellectuals were subsumed by the appeal of the Legion of the Archangel Michael in particular and radical antisemitism in general."
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| David Breitbarth (Berenger) and Trish Mulholland (Mrs. Boeuf) in a scene from Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
As one sits in the Geary Theatre watching a performance of Rhinoceros, it's all too easy to think about how the name of one character, Mr. Botard (Jomar Tagatac), rhymes with Kim Jong-un's description of Donald Trump as a dotard. Gene's accusations of "Fake News" and his increasing level of belligerence quickly bring to mind the mystifying transformation of the formerly logical and effete Senator Lindsey Graham into a bilious, bellowing Trumper attempting to perform jumping jacks while demonstrating his skill at dancing to the Macarena.
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| Matt DeCaro (Gene) and David Breitbarth (Berenger) in a scene from Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Despite the creepiness of the current political climate, ACT's new artistic director, Pam MacKinnon, stresses that while Rhinoceros may have strong political overtones, it is also a solid piece of entertainment.
“From a hoarse voice and slight cough to a headache that turns into a bump ‘just above the nose,’ from a quick look in a bathroom mirror to the discovery of a general greening of his skin, Gene transforms physically and emotionally before our eyes. This transformation is a true collaboration of text, design, performance, and direction (a combination of simple special effects, tricks of the eye, and staging), but mostly it’s on the actors and director to make us believe that we are witnessing a metamorphosis usually left to novels or the screen. Gene is not sick. He is strong and getting stronger. He is defensive of this strength and puts it on display, doing jumping jacks and bicycle circles with his legs. He hears that the voice of his friend Berenger is changing, while we hear that it is actually his voice getting raspy and deep.”
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| David Breitbarth (Berenger) and Matt DeCaro (Gene) in a scene from Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
“It’s interesting to me that Ionesco starts with sound before visually altering this man. We, the audience, take in theater aurally first, hence the etymology of the word ‘audience’ more listener than spectator. As an audience, we have already lived with both Gene and Berenger and their small town for an act by the time this transformation begins. We have heard the rhinos at a distance and underfoot, but only in this scene at the top of Act Two do we truly start to see them and how they are forged. The transformation is as much psychological and emotional, an extension of personality and ego, as it is physical. The rhino-man is building an armor (literally and figuratively), making adrenaline sexy, forceful, and constant. It’s all in the performance. It’s an accumulation that is surprising and inevitable. This scene bridges us from the humor of Act One to the horror beyond.”
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| David Breitbarth (Berenger) stands alone at the end of Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
With Ionesco's original three-act script reduced to a fast-moving 90-minute show with one intermission, the ability of cast members to enter and exit through curtain flaps (as opposed to three-dimensional sets) helps to instill a sense of surrealism. This becomes even more unnerving as the play veers toward its conclusion, with Berenger promising that he will not capitulate as the actors (now wearing rhinoceros heads) start to gather around him.
In supporting roles, Trish Mulholland made a hilarious appearance as Mrs. Boeuf (who, after discovering that her husband has turned into a rhinoceros, leaps down a staircase and rides out of town on his back). The irrepressible Danny Scheie (whose diction can deliver more inflections than a Yiddish curse word) shines as the office manager, Mr. Papillon. In smaller roles, Göran Norquist appears as Marcel, with Lauren Spencer as Collette, and Teddy Spencer as Mr. Dudard (who makes a last-ditch attempt to win over Berenger even as he himself is turning into a rhinoceros).
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| Jomar Tagatac (Mr. Botard), Teddy Spencer (Mr. Dudard) and Rona Figueroa (Daisy) in a scene from Rhinoceros (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
The heaviest dramatic burden rests on the shoulders of Matt DeCaro's Gene (a masterful performance) and David Breitbarth's steadfast Berenger. Rona Figueroa portrays the appealing Daisy, whose emotional investment in Berenger quickly fades as she yields to the pull of the herd of wild beasts. Jomar Tagatac appears in Act I as Mr. Botard.
Performances of Rhinoceros continue at the American Conservatory Theater through June 23 (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer:
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