One of the most satisfying evenings of Chicago theatre I have had over the past couple of years was Redmoon Theatre’s “The Cabinet” back in 2005, a stunning adaptation of F.W. Murnau’s German Expressionism film masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, using a creative blend of puppets, music, lighting, and silent film-like surtitles. Since then, I have tried to see a performance at Redmoon Central, the theatre’s combined performance space and build shop in a sprawling converted ink factory in the West Loop, but for some reason or another had been unable to do so. On Thursday night, I finally made my way over there for the re-mount of their 2000 hit “The Hunchback”, based on the famous Victor Hugo novel. I continue to be a gushy fan of Redmoon, and plan to attend many more performances in the future, but “The Hunchback”, unlike “The Cabinet”, was a play that I ultimately respected and admired more than enjoyed.
I think anyone who misses “The Hunchback” is losing out on seeing a fascinating, wildly creative, highly theatrical piece. First of all, the space was fantastic. Secondly, the play used a dizzying array of puppet styles (including a really unusual use of Bunraku puppets in a sex scene which will put many a theatrical purists’ thong lingerie in a bunch), and employed well-timed pieces of narration and dialogue, cutting out significant portions of Hugo’s novel to come up with an 80 minute dramatic work. I think the abbreviated approach to dramatizing the novel was one of the major weaknesses of the piece: I really never felt any empathy or compassion for Quasimodo, the Hunchback; because the characterization was so thinly drawn I never really got to know him. Additionally, unlike “The Cabinet”, which I thought was a sophisticated, seamless blending of music, theatre, and puppetry, “The Hunchback” was so messy and jarring at some points, with so much stuff going on between acrobatics, show-offy lighting techniques, music, and puppets that I wanted to force-feed Ritalin to the director and the entire ensemble. There was a hyperkinetic energy to the show, which was great to a point- until the flash buried the wistful themes of human connection so inherent in Hugo’s novel. Which brings me to the questions which nagged at me throughout the evening - since this was a remount of a 2000 show, when Redmoon was still in its early stages as an artistic organization, should the theatre have looked at the work more critically and made changes to streamline and discipline it for the 2007 production? Was updating a play to make it better, or at least tighter and leaner, tampering with “artistic integrity”? What would be the conditions that would make it acceptable to change an artistic work to be more reflective of the theatre’s (or the artist’s) growth and maturity level? Edward Albee just premiered “Peter and Jerry” off-Broadway; a “new” work which is actually comprised of his first one-act “The Zoo Story” and a new prologue to that one act tracing the domestic life of one of the characters, called “Homelife”. In last week’s lecture at the Art Institute, Albee said that it felt like the new play needed to be written in order to inform and complete the old play. He said that from now on, there was only the play “Peter and Jerry” and there was no play called “The Zoo Story” anymore. Was this just Albee swinging his massive cojones or was this something that any playwright needed to have the guts to do when needed?
On another note, I’m off tonight to “Dr. Atomic” at the Lyric Opera, with the nicest guy who would think of wearing a Suduku puzzle to a Halloween party, my buddy Erik. I’ll be posting on this major event soon, one that has sent many an arts and culture lover in Chicago swooning. For excellent write-ups on “Dr. Atomic”, check out Marc Geelhoed’s blog here, and the TimeoutChicago blog here.
Redmoon’s “The Hunchback” is running at Redmoon Central, 1463 W. Hubbard, until January 20, 2008. “Dr. Atomic” at the Lyric Opera opens tonight, and runs till January 19, 2008. Check out the podcasts (who said opera is for the bluehairs?) on Lyric’s website, www.lyricopera.com.
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