Buntport embraces strengths in one-acts
The laughs are fast, furious and dizzyingly inventive in Buntport theater’s latest original production, Misc.
The umbrella title encompasses two one-acts that are entirely unrelated but for their lack of sets and their boundless creativity. After a period of more serious work, it’s refreshing to see Buntport return to its metier: comedy that fulfills its premise in every gesture.
In Elevator, the audience’s patience is tested as four people ride in near silence during a two-minute elevator ride. Soon, though, that ride is replayed in longer form, with the actors voicing the inner thoughts that accompanied every facial gesture or posture shift.
As a past-his-prime wunderkind writer, Erik Edborg grasps desperately for a book pitch as his mind caroms through his skull, lighting on topics from Fabio to butter to sex to claustrophobia. He shares his space with Evan Weissman as a young man contemplating suicide and Erin Rollman as a rising editor who fears she’s a fraud. Their stories cleverly overlap, and Hannah Duggan enters on a sublimely subversive short ride.
Elevator stretches its premise and would benefit from a 15-minute cut. <Cinderella (Less Than Cinderella), on the other hand, is crammed so full of brainstorms that it’s likely a dozen more jokes were left in the rehearsal room.
This four-actor version of the fairy tale is told nearly without words but overflows with clever musical choices and transformative costumes that fill the usual role of the company’s scenery. It may also be the only version where the audience not only hopes Cinderella doesn’t get the prince but wants to bash her over the head with her own dustpan.
Edborg plays the title character, an ugly loser with a ratty blond wig. Duggan takes on both evil stepsisters, with her costume and makeup split neatly down the middle along with her personality. Rollman does extraordinary work as a stepmother performed with a mask and a dizzying physical impediment.
Weissman, the company’s newest member, gets his moment here as a narrator/harlequin who speaks in fairy tale pidgin English and is unwillingly conscripted to play the prince. The entire cast comes off as a group of perverse living Muppets, and while kids may enjoy the show, it’s unabated delirium for adults.
As always, there are company member unseen onstage but intimately involved in the plays’ creation. This time, those shunning the spotlight are Brian Colonna, Matt Petraglia and Samantha Schmitz. They must be cited, because all seven Buntport brains were working at full power on Misc.
-Lisa Bornstein, September 26, 2003, Rocky Mountain News