The Roast Beef Situation
Buntport Theatre
Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg, Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan and Evan Weissman
The creativity involved in the conception and execution of Buntport Theatre’s new show, “The Roast
Beef Situation,” is inventive genius
par excellence. This is no surprise since it has been conceived, directed
and acted by some of the brightest comic lights in this theatre community. They
are: Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg,Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, and Evan Weissman. It is an honor to get to see the works with which these
artists are blazing trails of comedy and dram-edy here and now in Denver.
This latest in a series of comic plays gives censorship a well-deserved comeuppance! And that is why you should
go. This piece makes us see how actors and clowns who survive on their
audience’s sometimes-fickle good will are often the victims of laws such as the
one that caused Carlo Delpini to be thrown into an English jail in July of
1787. Delpini broke the law that forbade unlicensed theatres to use dialogue
that was unaccompanied by music. In a moment of weakness he spoke the words
“Roast Beef” rather than sang them.
Censorship has been with us always. This was true at the time of
Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. The deposition scene in Shakespeare’s “Richard
II” caused more than a little eye rolling and Christopher Marlowe’s work came
under the scrutiny of Elizabeth I’s Star Chamber for many reasons. Marlowe barely
escaped experiencing its secret brutality first hand.
At that time theatres were closed by Puritans, and actors blamed for
lewdness. (In all honesty one must say that only occasionally were actors to
blame for such things.) For the most part the closing of theatres was due to
ecclesiastical sanctimony, political power mongering and public alarm resulting
in mob panic. Many times these maledictions came about because of the much
feared and widespread epidemics. Whether it was the resurgence of the Plague,
which was feared by everyone or some other societal scourge feared by those in
power such as a political uprising of one kind or another, the afflicted
community many times blamed it upon the theatre.
The Commedia del’Arte and its
presentation is- whether this reviewer is its greatest fan or not - magnificently
put forth. In this show the renowned Buntport humor, which so deftly demolishes
funny bones, takes a back seat to historical research regarding the persecution
of actors and the satirical evisceration of those ne’er do wells who hurt the theatre
by living by the letter of ridiculous and nonsensical laws.
Commedia del Arte
is this company’s style of choice in producing this new work. It’s a valid
choice and those who find an endless stream of pratfalls and baguette
whippings, accompanied by repetitive clangs and whistles palatable will find
this aspect of the proceedings delightful. This reviewer has nearly always
found the initiation of such theatrical expressions enjoyable. However… after
the hundredth repetition thereof he tends to find them tedious.
That said, one may find exceptional work in the muggings, sly
transitions of hairpieces to beard and moustache and many other sly subtleties
in the theatricality of the very correct stylistic presentation of this play.
The costuming and makeup of the actors in their portrayal of these eighteenth
century thespians is superb and indelible. It puts one in mind of the costuming
and also the depiction of the facial landscape in films by Federico Fellini
such as “I Clowns”, “Casanova” and “Fellini/Satyricon.”
SamAnTha Schmitz’s lighting design plays games with the viewer’s
subjective and objective points of view. The shifts in her lighting design make
one feel as though he were viewing an actual moment in theatrical history one
moment and pulled back into a modern theatrical depiction thereof the next. “The
Roast Beef Situation” is a blood-rare and gently mooing serving of existential theatrical Truth.
See it!
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