For me, the highlight of Collaboraction’s 2008 Sketchbook Festival was an eccentric, conceptually brazen, and very funny piece called “Cowboy Birthday Party” by Chicago playwright Emily Schwartz. It was so creative and so astounding, so in-tune with the exciting new work that Sketchbook has showcased in the past (unlike the disappointment of this year’s edition, but you could read about that in my previous blog post), that I was eagerly awaiting Schwartz’s next full-length play. I know she wrote Mr. Spacky…the Man Who Was Continuously Followed by Wolves which was much buzzed about last summer, and which actually won an Orgie award for best theatrical ambience or something like that (yeah, you read it right, the Orgies are theater awards supposedly given by anonymous critics/judges/audience members to the freshest, most creative, and tragically overlooked gems of the Chicago storefront scene, sort of like the antidote to the more conventional, fuddy-duddyish taste of the Jeff Awards). So I was looking forward to seeing her latest opus, The Mysterious Elephant and the Terrible Tragedy of the Unlikely Addington Twins…who kill him, currently being staged by her theater company Strange Tree Group in the basement of the Chopin Theater (which, notably, has hosted a bounty of theatrical delights this year such as the Hypocrites’ Our Town and TUTA’s Uncle Vanya). After several false starts given my wacky schedule nowadays, I finally made it to see the play last Sunday. Although Mysterious Elephant is not quite the must-see theatrical event of the season that some people have anointed it to be, I personally think it is unique, impressive, engaging, balls-out creative, and definitely deserves a wide audience. And I think it’s safe to say that Emily Schwartz and the Strange Tree Group are inarguably major talents on the rise, the ones to watch, the ones whom we can safely entrust the future of Chicago theater to.
Mysterious Elephant is a wacky meta-theatrical piece in which the lead characters of a book (and also of the play), the Addington Twins, played with endearing zest and on-target comedic chops by Carol Enoch and Matt Holzfeind, battle with a Narrator, an equally enthusiastic and game Weston Davis (who at one point wears a very fetching organza and lace Victorian dress), to make sure that their story (and the play) does not end as a tragedy, but rather as a “happily ever after” tale. Describing the plot of the play is quite close to impossible within the confines of a blog post, but suffice it to say that there are dead relatives whose portraits come alive and sing a rousing musical number; female pirates who have a collection of men’s hearts ripped out from their owners’ chests; and a strangely lovable, two-stepping corpse with a fake arm. Add to these craziness, a visual palette that blends elements of Victorian gothic, Edward Gorey, and Lemony Snicket; lots of string instruments and accordion-playing; some dialogue in rhyming verseand alliterations; paper dolls and puppets; a life-sized elephant made of cloth, twine, and paper-mache; and a warm-hearted, optimistic message that things are going to work out in the end, and you have theater that is different, fearless, imaginative, unedited.
And maybe this is my main criticism of the play – Schwartz and the director Carolyn Klein could have done with a little editing, a little restraint, a little pulling back of the whimsy and preciousness, and a little bit more focus and tightening of details. I think the play could have benefited more from a stronger, clearer back story as to who the Narrator is and why he has all that power; one less musical number; and an abbreviated scene of the dead relatives coming back to life (I felt the whimsy and the fantastical in that scene were getting a little repetitious and cloying). But the skill to self-edit, streamline, and critically focus can be acquired through time; I think Schwartz and Strange Tree Group already has the essential elements of fantastic weavers of theatrical magic: boatloads of talent, infectious enthusiasm, willingness to think outside of the theatrical black box, and a whole lot of genuine heart. I’ll be eagerly waiting to see what they do next.
The Mysterious Elephant and the Terrible Tragedy of the Unlikely Addington Twins…who kill him is playing at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, until July 19.
Tags: Emily Schwartz, Strange Tree Group
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