Buntport brilliant in reprise of ‘2 in 1’

You Buntport-come-latelies will want to hie yourselves over to Lipan Street and see how it all began, as the seven-person collective resurrects its second show. With the two one-acts that make up 2 in 1, Buntport reveals that its group’s amazingly cohesive aesthetic emerged full-force, like Venus from the half-shell, wearing a Groucho mask.

The two works together also demonstrate the breadth of Buntport’s abilities, from wry ’30s charm to a postmodern spoof that provokes such deep guffaws smokers may want to take precautions.

In . . . and this is my significant bother, the short stories of James Thurber are adapted into vignettes drawn with the light touch of one of the author’s own New Yorker cartoons. Each one tackles the foibles of marriage from its own angle, with the actors in superb period performance.

Brian Colonna personifies the meek, retiring and henpecked husband. He preens with macho pride after swatting a spider, then cowers from a bat. In another story, after falling in love with his secretary, he informs his wife of his plans to kill her, his voice squeaking like a bad hinge. Then he capitulates as the wife dictates exactly how and when the murder will occur.

Erin Rollman’s Betty Boop eyes and Clara Bow lips are a fast-track back to the ’30s, as is a falsetto voice that cries out screwball. In a scene where others voice their thoughts, both she and Colonna perfectly embody the facial tics of a busy brain.

Hannah Duggan, frequently severe or frumpy here, can browbeat without being hateful, and Erik Edborg turns the leading-man image on its ear.

It’s a journey back in time from Thurber to Beowulf, but Act II’s Word-Horde is hilarity of the postmodern variety. Using words in the most ingenious ways as costumes, props and set, they offer up a Cliff’s Notes version of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem that has been the downfall of many a high school freshman.

Not an opportunity for humor has been missed here, but none of it is superfluous or comes at the expense of the actual tale of Beowulf. Massive sections are dramatized in summary (don’t miss the human boat or bloody attack on Grendel), followed by pithy “commentary,” aided by a checklist of themes and symbols.

It’s not imperative that you have read Beowulf; it’s only necessary that you have attended school to appreciate the sublime humor of the piece.

Offstage, the four actors are supplemented by Matt Petraglia, Samantha Schmitz and Evan Weissman. In this seemingly anarchic environment, a solid company has emerged that devises the most brilliant of visual and sonic effects, always remembering that theater should enlist multiple senses.

-Lisa Bornstein, April 30, 2004, Rocky Mountain News