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The Designated Mourner
By Wallace Shawn
Directed by Tony Ingram
Produced by The Right Brain Project (RBP)
At The Side Studio
1520 W. Jarvis
Chicago, IL
Call 773-750-2033, tickets $15
Thursdays thru Saturdays at 8 pm
Running time is 1 hour, 50 minutes with intermission
Through August 11, 2007
Hauntingly intoxicating work is a wake up call for intellectuals
Following their successful mounting of The Castle, the Right Brain Project has elected to stage Wallace Shawn’s marvelously written provocative three-hander, The Designated Mourner. Elizabeth Bagby (Judy), Charles Bernstein (Howard) and Ted Hoerl (Jack) work hard and deliver Shawn’s wordy series of monologues that tell the story of a dissolving marriage, the repressive attacks aimed toward intellectuals by an Orwellian society and the personal search for identify.
This is a terrific vehicle for actors allowing them to use their skills to paint pictures through words and body language. Densely personal narrative together with social diatribes against the evil new government, The Designated Mourner is an intense piece that demands your full attention. The show comments on our search for meaning in a world devoid of art.
Wallace Shawn has given his players marvelous descriptions filled with colorful illustrations and apt metaphors that paint a haunting look at both the evils of a society bent on curbing intellectual thought and killing individualism. Elizabeth Bagby and Charles Bernstein react and add depth to Jack’s self-hating ruminations. Ted Hoerl is the dominant character here. Hoerl’s smart narrative skills together with his nuanced delivery complete with a knowing smile and a wink allow him to command our attention. We empathize with his journey of self-discovery and we understand why has become “The Designated Mourner” both for his own life, his marriage and his society. This is an important, thinking person’s play. It is well acted and nicely engaging. Jack lives in the moment enjoying each simple thing life offers. We quietly cheer for Jack to survive, his ultimate goal. Despite his loathsomeness, Jack is us.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: July 21, 2007
Review by Randy Hardwick
The new Right Brain Project production of Wallace Shawn’s The Designated Mourner at Side Studio in Rogers Park is a thought provoking piece of work that will engross theatre goers of literary, intellectual bent. In other words, this is not light entertainment, but rather a mental jungle gym for those who enjoy a bit of cerebral gymnastics while at the theatre. Actually, quite a lot of cerebral gymnastics are required in the case of The Designated Mourner, but this is not to say that the show is not worth the effort or that audiences will be bored. Quite the opposite is true. Thanks to exceptionally fine acting, there is not a dull moment and one is kept thoroughly occupied trying to figure out what exactly is going on and what, if anything, it all means.
Three intertwined monologues narrate the events which over time reveal a surreal sort of post-chaos world in which the central character is the only one remaining to mourn the passing of the very last person living who could read John Donne. He is the designated mourner, providing a focal point for the eulogy and lamentation of a civilization that has passed from high ideals and noble pursuits to low brow pleasures and individual indulgences. It is a funeral for the passing of something that only the mourner remembers. Ironically, only the mourner survives; he is the only one who can mourn because he is the only one who can remember, but he is alive to remember precisely because he chose to forget his ideals. The mourner’s survival is also his destruction.
This is a script of incredible difficulty, masterfully served up by Ted Hoerl, Elizabeth Bagby and Charles Bernstein. In the bare, intimate setting of Side Studio the characters are so incredibly natural that at times I found it difficult not to lock the actors’ eyes and give back the sort of non-verbal cues we all use to carry on conversations. It is as if the characters are not only real, but actually engaged in a private tệte-a-tệte with the audience. Elizabeth Bagby’s Judy, a middle-age woman who has lost everything – father, husband, friends, social standing, even her life – is the most sympathetic of the characters thanks to Bagby’s remarkable expression of suffering and rage in a perfectly nuanced rendering the obliged dignity of Judy’s privileged class.
The Designated Mourner is a densely written work with a complexity that is reminiscent of Harold Pinter or Tom Stoppard. It is unclear whether or not the warning of the dire consequences following the passing of high ideals is aimed directly at contemporary Western civilization or the global world in general, but it doesn’t really matter. Theatre goers will have work through the discomfort of reasoning these things out in their own heads in the not terribly comfortable folding chairs at Side Studio. The ambiance only adds to the experience. If you like your theatre well acted and cerebral, this show is for you.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Randy Hardwick
randyontheglobe@yahoo.com for comments
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