Other absurdist fare went swimmingly, but this one’s off the deep end
Denver’s Buntport Theater has a well-earned reputation for embracing the absurd, whether it be a satire of space serials (Starship Troy: A Live Sitcom) or live-action comic books.
The company’s penchant for crafting comedy from the unusual continues with Anywhere but Rome, a spoof of Ovid’s epic poem, Metamorphoses.
Yes, that Metamorphoses, a 16,000-line ode to Greek mythology and the human ability to transform.
Ambition is to be applauded in the arts, but this is one case where too much ambition can be thematically oppressive.
The play opens with us meeting the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (Erik Edborg) hitchhiking in the modern-day world. (The play takes place in Minnehaha County.) While sticking his thumb out for a ride, he’s trying to remember his poem Metamorphoses, the manuscript of which he burned in a snit after being banned from Rome for offending the emperor.
He carries a large duffle bag from which he extracts his traveling companion, the blind prophet (and a character in his poem) Tiresias (Brian Colonna). Tiresias is more or less the voice of reason, chiding Ovid for his petulance and rash behavior. The duo’s destination is uncertain; it appears to be anywhere but Rome.
Joining them on their journey is Io (Erin Rollman), the mistress that Zeus turned into a cow to thwart the suspicions of his wife, Hera.
Io clumsily staggers about on two legs and fights the itchiness of the “human” dress she’s forced to wear. Her hooves make it hard to physically grasp things. There’s also the child’s Halloween mask she dons to hide her bovine features.
Bizarre? Absolutely, but it gets stranger still.
The trio is eventually picked up by a married couple on their own journey of exile.
Louis (Evan Weissman) is an English teacher. His wife, Carol (Hannah Duggan), is a jovial sort with a big problem: She’s turning into a chicken.
Yep, every day new feathers appear on her legs, and when excited her speech sometimes turns into a squawk.
As the quintet motors down the road, conflicts arise.
Why won’t Ovid admit his love for Io? Why does Louis blame Carol for her poultrification?
And why is it that blind prophet Tiresias can’t see the irony of his fellow travelers, or help Ovid remember the large chunks of the poem in which he appears?
Anywhere but Rome is too clever for its own good by half. If you’ve not read Metamorphoses (and how many of us have?), some of the jokes fall flat.
Its repeated references to mythology can be confusing, and the characters are by design caricatures. A moo-dy cow? A chicken lady who lays eggs? A poet who can’t remember his own lengthy ode to transformation?
The Buntport cast strives to be outrageous, yet the humor is mostly found in the performances, not the material. Edborg’s Ovid is a bundle of creative neuroses.
Rollman valiantly emotes through all that cow makeup. Weissman’s Louis is an excitable cad torn between his love for his wife and his disdain for what she’s become. And Duggan’s Carol is the scene stealer here, as one of those corn-fed Midwesterners who tries to put the best face on all problems.
What to do when things get tense in the car? Pull over and play a game of badminton.
Buntport is a six-person collective that excels at improvisation. Parts of this show hit the mark. More often, though, it’s like sitting through a dissertation with highbrow punch lines
-Mike Person, December 11, 2008, Rocky Mountain News