July 2010 Theatre Review by Lawrence Bommer
Hard Headed Heart
A
decade in the making, the concentrated puppetry in Blair Thomas’
latest offering, a 75-minute trio of interconnected solo shows,
amounts to superb storytelling. Recommended for 14 or older,
this is not your usual pretty make believe. Even better, it
explodes the lie that puppetry lacks the emotional range of
traditional theater. These stories run and earn their own
gamut—from salacious buffoonery to music-hall overkill to serene
contemplation. The fact that, unlike much “live”
theater, they manage to avoid boredom is, however negative a feat, no
small success.
“Hard Headed Heart” implies that this passionate puppetry should never lose sight of the reality it simulates and, necessarily, exaggerates. Violent and visceral, the colorful courtship and miserable marriage of the rascally impostor Don Cristobal (a kind of Spanish “Punch”) and his sluttish Dona Rosita (“Judy”) is based on a ribald script by Federico Garcia Lorca. Don Cristobal, a wooden hand puppet with a big stick, is a bully whose union with the flirtatious-to-fornicating Rosita is puppet poetic justice. Thomas manipulates Don Cristobal, his harridan of a mother-in-law, the vixenish Rosita and her many nightly suitors with aplomb, thumping drums to punctuate the unsubtle slapstick. This is about as X-rated as inanimate creatures get but, happily, leaves enough to the imagination to be even filthier.
Adding a distancing element of “The Puppet Show of Don Cristobal” is Blair’s frantic alternation between the poet and the producer (his costume flips around to change characters) in which the men dispute the wages of art and the moneyman inevitably wins out.
Cacophonous
and ardent as a drunken dirge, “St. James Infirmary” is
based on the traditional New Orleans folksong and employs a brassy
musical backdrop to present a bluesman’s lament for the lady
love who died and haunts him as a skeleton. Thomas employs his
signature motorized paper scroll to depict the stages of their
romance and separation, while rod marionettes deftly depict the
lovers and her ghost. As if that’s not enough
multitasking, Thomas becomes his own one-man band, accenting the
action in the most literal manner possible.
Finally and most captivating, “The Blackbird” is based on Wallace Stevens’ cryptic poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” To a richly integrated backdrop of Ben Johnston’s “String Quartet #4,” Thomas (who has now doffed his sinister pancake makeup and red eyeliner) unfurls four parchment scrolls that depict, as a whole picture or in parts, aspects of the blackbird as transformed by the poet’s—and puppet’s—perspective. Lit by lamplight, the translucent drawings perfectly complement the haiku-like simplicity of Stevens’ verse.
As moving as the puppetry and material are the three very different stages that roll forward to present each story, each elaborately framed with dream-like ornamentation that’s both old school and as new as imagination itself. Blair Thomas and Company present "Hard Headed Heart" through August 8, 2010 at the Richard Christiansen Theater at Victory Gardens, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago.
Performance times are Thursday at 8 pm; Friday at 9 pm; Saturday at 6 and 9 pm; and Sunday at 4 pm. Exception: Due to the Taste of Lincoln Avenue Festival, there will only be one show Saturday, July 24, at a special late time, 10 pm. There will be no show Sunday, July 25. Tickets are only $25. For tickets and information, call the Victory Gardens box office at 773.871.3000, or purchase tickets online at victorygardens.org. For more information on this show, please visit the Theatre In Chicago Hard Headed Heart page.
About Lawrence Bommer
A
native Chicagoan, Lawrence Bommer has been an active free-lance
writer and playwright since 1975. For twenty years he wrote a
weekly column, "Opening Nights" for the Friday section of
the Chicago Tribune, where he also regularly contributed theater
criticism and feature writing. His work has appeared in
Stagebill, the Pulitzer-Lerner newspapers and The Advocate.
Mr. Bommer was theater editor for the Windy City Times since its founding until 1999; from 1986 a theater critic for the Chicago Reader (where he has also written for the "Calendar" and "Our Town" sections); Chicago Free Press, where he was contributing editor until the paper’s demise in spring 2010; Chicago Footlights, where he has been a regular contributor; and Plays International, where he is the Chicago correspondent. He has also contributed to the Hollywood Reporter, PerformInk, Screen Magazine, CitySearch, the Chicago Illini, Inside Chicago, Illinois Entertainer, the International Theatre Festival of Chicago newsletter, Plays International, CitySearch, Playbill Online, TheatreMania, CurtainUp.com and Chicago Enterprise. Mr. Bommer is a three-time finalist for a Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism in the "arts criticism" category. In 1991 he became a regular theater and, dance critic and arts writer for the Chicago Tribune. His commentary has also aired on LesBiGay Radio, WGN and on Milwaukee Public Radio.
As a playwright, Mr. Bommer's work has been produced in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Madison and, in Chicago, by the Organic Theater Company (Jonathan Wild [1979], Poe [1980]. Gulliver's Last Travels [1993] and by Lionheart Gay Theatre (Gunsel, The Tyrannicides, Killers and Comrades). Since 1976 Mr. Bommer has taught at the Francis W. Parker School and was a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1969 to 1975 (where he received his Master's degree in English), as well as a guest lecturer at the College of DuPage, Roosevelt University, DePaul University and the University of Chicago. Mr. Bommer is a member of the American Theater Critics Association and has been a member of the National Writers Union and the Dramatists Guild.