CLOSING SOON - DO NOT MISS!
By Venus Zarris
Sometimes, combining two completely unrelated flavors creates a magical delicacy. Such is the case with Clove Productions’ remarkable presentation of Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius. Both extraordinary new works completely transport you to suspended realities that are fascinating, provocative, entertaining, and yet are totally and contrastingly different.
In Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius, playwright Michael Martin creates a detailed and delicate portrait of Madeleine. She is the unassuming wife of Nobel Prize-winning writer André Gide. Charming, soft-spoken, articulate and subtly devious, Madeleine shares her post-mortem (as both she and André are long gone by the time we meet her) revelations on life with the accomplished writer.
Martin imagines a life lost in the shadows of the fame that surrounded it. Madeleine was sweetly loved and simultaneously scorned by André. She was his platonic muse, floating above his homosexual indulgences. She is bothered but not bitter, loving but not naive. Madeleine does not wish to shame Gide’s reputation, usurp his place in history, or even stake out her own spot, but rather share the emotional interactions and isolations of the unconventional partnership.
Shannon Evans beautifully directs this enchanting monologue with great depth. She shines a restrained light on the emotion, as one would curate a fragile masterpiece in a museum.
Ariel Brenner takes on this dauntingly complex character with impressive nuance and splendidly soft strength. So many moments could go painfully wrong in the hands of a lesser actor, but Brenner not only makes these moments compelling, she also makes them magical. She is a single woman, in a simple parlor, telling a sweetly somber story with staggering effect. She brilliantly weaves as rare and resplendent a tale as Martin elegantly writes.
Madeleine tells us that, “Of all of the geniuses running about this poor good world, writers must be the worst… the urge to write is unnatural… Even acting is less perverse.”
If this be true, viva Martin’s profound and poignant perversions.
Fruit Tree Backpack opens on a woman wrapping an orange in clear packing tape. The act may seem odd but it is mundane compared to the hysterical exposition that follows. Playwright Barrie Cole creates an examination of abstract personal conceptualizations that is casual, frantic, contemporary, absurd, accessible, sincere and ridiculous. In the seemingly silly conversations of a darling yet detached couple, Cole uncovers extraordinary analysis of art, art analysis, and the anti-analysis of artistic expression.
Delightfully intellectual without being academic, Cole uncovers humor in places that few bother to look. The writing is self-aware, self-assured and self-aggrandizing; balancing in the perfect dose of silly so as not to take its serious revelations too seriously. Cole uncovers the idiosyncratic psychosis of human interaction at its most brilliantly funny and cleverly revealing by rendering absurd analogies that are dead on.
When the relationship between the couple starts to unravel, the woman declares, “I wish that things were different between us, like a newly remodeled grocery store with a health food section.”
Eric Ziegenhagen directs Marisa Wegrzyn and Michael Kessler with exceptional restraint. The delivery is both stylized and natural. The esoterically erudite antics are in the hands of charmingly smart actors that create laugh-out-loud results. Both bring unique performances to the play but Wegrzyn shines as a comic genius with wry and controlled eccentricity that yields explosive humor.
Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius are rare and astonishing theatrical treasures. In a tiny black box with no whistles and bells, Clove Productions takes two short scripts and three exceptional actors and creates a dynamic spectacle of intimately captivating wonder. Seating is limited and the run is short so waste no time reserving your tickets to this incredibly beguiling combination of resplendently unusual plays.
4 STARS
(“Fruit Tree Backpack and Madeleine Remains: In Memory, A Wife of Genius” EXTENDED through July 26 at The Side Project Theatre, 1439 West Jarvis. 773-508-0666)
Madeleine Remains production photo by Jordan Scrivner.
Fruit Tree Backpack production photo by Eric Ziegenhagen.
