Surreal comedy skewers love
Theater Review
Toolbox
By Jim Lowe Staff Writer - Published: August 23, 2009
BURLINGTON — Vermont's largest city has acquired its first summer theater company in years, and if Friday's opening night performance is any indication, it promises fine performances of some unusual theater.
The Red Stage Theatre Company opened a hilarious and touching production of Adam Bock's surreal comedy, "Five Flights," Friday at the Main Street Landing Arts Center's Black Box.
Burlington native Kohler McKenzie brought a bunch of fellow grad students from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at New Jersey's Rutgers University. Perhaps surprisingly, this fills a void of professional-level theater during the summer. The company already produced Archibald Macleish's "J.B." earlier this summer.
"Five Flights" is a quirky love story, built around a family that is already pretty quirky. Ed acts as narrator and tells the story of his father, who thought the soul of his wife and Ed's mother returned as a wren. Ed's father so wanted to be with his wife that he built the wren a house-sized aviary and, with the help of Ed's sister Adele, collected other "souls" in the form of birds to keep her company.
Well, Ed and Adele's father has now died, and they must decide what to do with the aviary. Their painfully practical sister-in-law Jane wants to clean up the mess the aviary has become and turn it into a neat housing development. Adele wants to turn it into a church based on birds with her kooky spiritualist friend Olivia.
Ed, who seems to have the deciding vote, doesn't know what he wants. That leads to a comic romp through a nutty religion, his neurotic family's problems and an iffy love affair with a ballet-loving hockey player. (The romances are all gay, as is the playwright.) There are some serious themes in the play, but they never get in the way. Only that of innocence betrayed seems to matter.
Red Stage's production, directed by New York Theater veteran Maryna Harrison, was fast-paced and particularly well-acted with convincing portrayals all around. Krystopher Perry played Ed sympathetically as an innocent who has been hurt in love and is afraid to try again. Aaron Ballard was also sympathetic and dimensional as Adele as she loses her innocence.
Jennifer Ring was particularly funny and convincing as the fanatical Olivia, who is founding her own religion. Kristen Lazzarini's Jane too was an innocent, and gradually revealed her vulnerability. Giuseppe Diamede proved particularly dimensional as the sensitive hockey player Tom. McKenzie, though, has the most fun role, that of Tom's simpleminded hockey player friend André, and he's a riot.
There are some quibbles, like moments of stock acting (such as extending open-palmed hands to be meaningful), which contrasts with Bock's very realistic language. And the movement on stage at times seemed more clumsy than realistic. Still, the interaction of the players was nearly like chamber music.
The Red Stage Theatre Company is a welcome addition to the area's theater scene.