‘Exquisite Corpse’ is far-fetched, funny
by Bryan Rourke | Journal Staff Writer | Saturday, January 24, 2009
PROVIDENCE — The Exquisite Corpse Plays has life. Sometimes it’s vibrant, and offers laughs. Other times, it just maintains a pulse.
The production, which opened at Perishable Theatre on Thursday and continues through next week, is billed as 10 plays in one. But really, it’s 10 short plays. Each scene is independent of each other, although they do all share a similar quality of silly surrealism.
That’s the exquisite corpse concept, a parlor game on which this production is based. Writers Dave Rabinow and Alexander Pratt of Elemental Theatre each independently and alternately wrote the production’s 10 scenes. When one finished writing one scene, an object or idea from the scene was given to the other writer as a starting point to write the next scene.
It’s improvisational collaborative and imaginative playwriting. The show is far-fetched, yet often funny.
You’ve got a blind man telling jokes among a flock of crows (actors in black, including masks, sitting on their haunches and flapping their arms). And you’ve got a couple of botanists in the wild trying to capture a rare species: an artist.
Essentially this production is a series of absurd skits, which really run the range. There’s a scene with two talking hand puppet mice.
“Is there a God?” one mouse asks the other.
“Do we control our actions, or are we just puppets?”
There are also two different scenes involving nudity, one with a topless woman, the other with a fully naked man, which is quite amusing. In that scene, two men and two women gather after an acid-trip party, which is apparent in their absurd actions and remarks. A man strips to go skinny dipping. The women hide his clothes. He returns. The conversation is comical, then turns maniacal. A gun can do that.
In other another scene, a man and a woman, who are both a little off-kilter, are refugees from war, hiding in his and her foxholes , and eventually get to see the other’s.
“Your hole’s not so bad.”
“Did you always have this kitchen area?”
Exquisite corpse is a parlor game popularized by surrealist artists in the 1920s. Director Peter Sampieri proposed a unifying premise for the disparate scenes: They’re the writings of a 1920s French surrealist playwright.
Throughout the production, the cast of seven periodically appear all dressed the same – black pants, jacket, vest and bowler hat. They’re supposed to be manifestations of the same surrealist writer, who offer brief introductory transitions to his works.
The performances by the cast are good: Jillian Blevins, Elizabeth Gotauco, Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Michael LoCicero, Kelly Nichols, Rebecca Noon and Christopher Rosenquest. At the end, the actors, characters, stories and ideas are all sucked into one man’s head, into his bowler hat, in coalescing touch.
The Exquisite Corpse Plays are presented at Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire St., Providence, tonight at 8, tomorrow at 2, and next Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and next Sunday at 2 p.m. To reserve tickets, $15, call (401) 447-3001 or info@elementaltheatre.org.
www.projo.com
The URL link to this article is no longer functional. We have reproduced the text of the article here. Any errors are the responsibility of Elemental Theatre.
PROVIDENCE — The Exquisite Corpse Plays has life. Sometimes it’s vibrant, and offers laughs. Other times, it just maintains a pulse.
The production, which opened at Perishable Theatre on Thursday and continues through next week, is billed as 10 plays in one. But really, it’s 10 short plays. Each scene is independent of each other, although they do all share a similar quality of silly surrealism.
That’s the exquisite corpse concept, a parlor game on which this production is based. Writers Dave Rabinow and Alexander Pratt of Elemental Theatre each independently and alternately wrote the production’s 10 scenes. When one finished writing one scene, an object or idea from the scene was given to the other writer as a starting point to write the next scene.
It’s improvisational collaborative and imaginative playwriting. The show is far-fetched, yet often funny.
You’ve got a blind man telling jokes among a flock of crows (actors in black, including masks, sitting on their haunches and flapping their arms). And you’ve got a couple of botanists in the wild trying to capture a rare species: an artist.
Essentially this production is a series of absurd skits, which really run the range. There’s a scene with two talking hand puppet mice.
“Is there a God?” one mouse asks the other.
“Do we control our actions, or are we just puppets?”
There are also two different scenes involving nudity, one with a topless woman, the other with a fully naked man, which is quite amusing. In that scene, two men and two women gather after an acid-trip party, which is apparent in their absurd actions and remarks. A man strips to go skinny dipping. The women hide his clothes. He returns. The conversation is comical, then turns maniacal. A gun can do that.
In other another scene, a man and a woman, who are both a little off-kilter, are refugees from war, hiding in his and her foxholes , and eventually get to see the other’s.
“Your hole’s not so bad.”
“Did you always have this kitchen area?”
Exquisite corpse is a parlor game popularized by surrealist artists in the 1920s. Director Peter Sampieri proposed a unifying premise for the disparate scenes: They’re the writings of a 1920s French surrealist playwright.
Throughout the production, the cast of seven periodically appear all dressed the same – black pants, jacket, vest and bowler hat. They’re supposed to be manifestations of the same surrealist writer, who offer brief introductory transitions to his works.
The performances by the cast are good: Jillian Blevins, Elizabeth Gotauco, Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Michael LoCicero, Kelly Nichols, Rebecca Noon and Christopher Rosenquest. At the end, the actors, characters, stories and ideas are all sucked into one man’s head, into his bowler hat, in coalescing touch.
The Exquisite Corpse Plays are presented at Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire St., Providence, tonight at 8, tomorrow at 2, and next Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and next Sunday at 2 p.m. To reserve tickets, $15, call (401) 447-3001 or info@elementaltheatre.org.
www.projo.com
The URL link to this article is no longer functional. We have reproduced the text of the article here. Any errors are the responsibility of Elemental Theatre.