Buntport Theater

Reviews

In the foreground, an older man in a magenta suit looks at the camera. In the background, an odd trio sit at a long table. Behind him, seated at a long table, is an eagle in a t-shirt sitting in a hanging wicker chair. Peaking from behind the chair is a man in a white shirt. Next to him is a cow in a dress.

North Denver Tribune- Buntport Delivers Another Funny, Timely, Fascinating Production

Buntport Theater describes their most recent creation, The Zeus Problem, as inspired by Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound and current events. The story of Prometheus taking fire from the gods and giving it to humans, then being chained to a rock by Zeus, with an eagle eating his perpetually regenerating liver, is well known. But of course, this is Buntport, so they don’t just retell the story. They provide depth to all the characters, add in Henry David Thoreau working on a translation of Aeschylus’s original Greek play, and throw in the arrogant, insecure, angry, cruel, and immature tyrant Zeus, a character noticeably lacking (much to his chagrin) in the original play. While not manifestly tying the situation to the current political climate, the parallels are obvious. This is a thought-provoking and hilarious look at the original myth and at how easily power can be abused.

The play, as always written by the Buntport five, SamAnTha Schmitz, Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg, Hannah Duggan, and Brian Colonna, starts with a prologue by Zeus, beginning his defense for the horrible things he has done. The grand drape then opens, revealing what is later described as a “dinner party” (though only one character is actually eating anything for most of the show) at an immensely long table that also serves as an occasional acting surface. At one end is Thoreau, with his papers stacked in front of him. Zeus, of course, is seated in the center. At the other end is Prometheus, bound to a rock, Io, a woman whom Zeus has turned into a cow, and the eagle charged with pecking out and eating Prometheus’s constantly regenerating liver. The tableau is both absurd and striking, physically establishing relationships immediately. We then learn more about all the characters, with multiple layers of story being told, following what is in the original play and myth, but also providing insightful and often hilarious perspectives.

The acting is superb. Buntport had Jim Hunt in mind when they created the play, and his performance as Zeus is wonderful. He knows he is all-powerful, but he doesn’t understand or care about the suffering he causes – everything is all about him. He is constantly concerned about his appearance, the size of certain body parts, and while he says selfishly that he wants sympathy, his actions are inherently cruel. (Sound familiar?) Erik Edborg is Prometheus, pushing against Zeus, challenging the power structure. Edborg transforms nicely back and forth as he shifts to speaking the translated lines from the play, which are both jarring and surprisingly lovely (though they don’t always rhyme). As Io, Erin Rollman is tender and sympathetic, though somewhat dim (as one would expect from a cow), and intermittently hilarious as she deals with her bovine reality. Hannah Duggan brings the eagle, not a significant character in the story, to life wonderfully, complaining about her lot in life, saying that she “doesn’t even like liver,” and complaining that there are not even any onions. Both Duggan and Rollman capture an astonishing sense of the animals they are, adding bits and ticks that fit perfectly. As Thoreau, Brian Colonna is intelligent, articulate, quoting himself in appropriate ways, transcending the anachronism that brings the multiple time periods together.

Because Buntport does their own designs as they are developing a play, the technical elements are completely integrated with the storytelling. The set is lovely and striking, with a very, very long table, allowing for separation of the characters and giving Zeus a place to puff himself up above everyone else, as well as a bold and sparkling lightning bolt on the wall, never letting anyone forget Zeus’s power. The costumes are exceptional as well, particularly the two animals. It is difficult to describe why they are so good – there is more than suggestion, but they are still not literal, but allow these two talented actors to become the anthropomorphized animals. Prometheus’s t-shirt is humorously appropriate, and Thoreau is clothed appropriately for the period. The sound and lighting are both exceptional as well – the mixing of several different powerful classical music pieces when Zeus becomes angry is artistically and technically perfect.

Buntport has a remarkable ability to take a classic myth, make it interesting, very funny, and surprisingly real, and then give insights in to our lives today. Even with the humor, the pain and suffering is real. It is not just fire that Prometheus gave to humans, it is enlightenment and reason, and Zeus absolutely hates that. This is a battle between humanity and gods. To keep power, Zeus must fight against reason and justice, unwilling to admit to the cruelty of his treatment of Prometheus and Io. For humanity to survive, reason and justice must prevail, which is a very timely message.

Craig Williamson, February 10, 2017, North Denver Tribune

In stark magenta light, an older bearded man in a suit leans towards the camera, yelling. Behind him, a person dressed as an eagle with its wings spread is also yelling. The eagle is wearing a t-shirt.

ARTICLE Denverite- zeus-problem

Denver’s theater community is putting the anxiety and tumult of the first weeks of 2017 on stage at a speed suited to a news cycle that is currently in overdrive.

Curious Theatre Company announced Thursday morning that it will produce “Building the Wall,” a new play from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, whose name you may have seen in the news recently connected with the Oscar-nominated film “Hacksaw Ridge,” which he co-wrote.

On Friday night, Buntport Theater will also open its own show written after Trump’s election, “The Zeus Problem,” also a response of sorts — although in Buntport’s typically offbeat fashion — to the political climate.

“Building the Wall” was written in the weeks after President Donald Trump’s election and before his inauguration — and inserted into the Curious Theatre season schedule in an extraordinary midseason change.

“About a week ago this all started bubbling up, maybe ten days,” says Chip Walton, artistic director of Curious Theatre. After Schenkkan wrote the play, Walton says colleagues began sending him the script.

“Building the Wall,” according to the announcement from Curious, is a show that “looks at a time in the very near future when the Trump administration has carried out his campaign promise to round up and detain millions of immigrants. A writer interviews the supervisor of a private prison as he awaits sentencing for carrying out the federal policy that has escalated into the unimaginable.”

“Multiple people sent me the script,” Walton said, “I think in part knowing that we’re the type of theater that is committed to producing this kind of work, and the type of theater that is maybe nimble enough to say, ‘OK, let’s go, let’s do it.’”

Sure enough, Curious will squeeze the play in, starting during the end of the run of “Constellations,” which opens in March and runs through April 15. The theater will be part of what is called a “rolling world premiere,” which Walton says currently includes a theater in Los Angeles and will likely eventually include at least one other theater. Such a premiere helps new plays get over the hump from being produced in its first theater to being produced in its second, third and fourth, he said.

“The Zeus Problem,” a darkly comedic reimagining of the story of Prometheus Bound, depicts Henry David Thoreau working on his own translation of that story until a main character seizes control of the whole production, according to Buntport member Erin Rollman.

“Zeus derails our play,” she says. “He refuses to leave, he wants everything to be about him. He doesn’t like that in the original production he’s painted in a bad light.”

“He’d like to control the messaging,” Rollman added.

Production still from “The Zeus Problem” at Buntport Theater. (Courtesy of Buntport Theater)

Rollman says the show isn’t explicitly about Trump, and that Jim Hunt, the actor portraying Zeus, bears no resemblance to Trump and makes no effort to imitate him, but that there are some clear parallels. Buntport, which writes most of its shows over the course of four or five weeks, scrapped the script they’d been working on after the election — there were giant pigeons involved — and started anew.

“We might have come in for a whole week and just stared at each other,” Rollman said. “It’s a bit of a blur.” But the process picked up steam.

“Because we write our own shows, and we do so relatively quickly, we thought, ‘We’re one of the companies that can pivot right now — and we should.’ ”

Of Curious’s shift, Rollman says, “I think that’s awesome. That’s hard to do. When you have a set season, the way that they did, it’s extremely hard to throw a whole other production in. And I think that that’s the type of thing that we have to be doing.”

Walton clearly agrees, and has accepted the challenge of taking a lead time for a production that can range from six months to a year and compressing it to two months.

“And we’ve got to find actors,” he says. “Many of the best actors around are committed to other projects already. The thing working in our favor is that so many artists feel so committed to this.”

In some ways, two months also seems far away — especially when you consider the one-protest-per-weekend schedule Denver seems to be on right now. But Walton doesn’t worry much about the public being burned out on politics by the April opening night of “Building the Wall.”

“If we’re fatigued by April, we’re all in trouble,” he says. “This is going to be a long haul.

“I don’t think you can go and march every weekend — I mean, you can, but there is a point at which we need to find other ways, in addition to protesting, in addition to marching, to continue the dialogue, to feed the soul of resistance.”

Late last year, just before the election, Curious hosted a staged reading of “It Can’t Happen Here,” a play based on Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 satiric novel.

And in just a few weeks, Buntport Theater is reviving its 2003 play, “The 30th of Baydak,” a look at dictatorship in Turkmenistan, for a staged reading on Feb. 20.

“The Zeus Problem” runs at Buntport Feb. 3-25.

“Building the Wall” will run at Curious April 4-19.

A male camper wearing a mustache and glasses looks worried as he contends with the fake fish that he’s caught.

Get Boulder- Camp Katabasis

I am the first to admit that the Buntport team are a lot smarter and more well read than I. Many of their productions contain symbolism I only begin to understand …. and then they make me laugh and I forget what I was trying to figure out. What I do understand about all of their shows is the stunning creativity of theme, dialogue and setting. You never know what you’re going to get with a new Buntport show except that it will be innovative in concept and brilliant in performance.

As it is with GREETINGS. I don’t really care that this “Oscar and Felix Go Camping” evening is combined with “Waiting for Godot” and Greek mythology. It made me laugh. Out loud and often. We have two mismatched friends on their annual camping weekend. One (Erik Edborg) is laid back and casual – ready to spend the time reading and enjoying nature. His friend (Brian Colonna) has brought equipment and supplies for every possible contingency and/or catastrophe. He is neurotic and uncomfortable in this outdoor environment. He sets a timer so he can renew his sunscreen every two hours and then wears a ski mask so it won’t evaporate.

Their adventures in camping are accompanied by memories of a long-ago camp counselor names Amie (Hannah Duggan) who gave them safety tips wile warning them of the dire dangers of going too near the water. For instance, she starts a lecture on the correct way to canoe and ends up admonishing them that to be really safe, they should just stay out of the water. While most of the time, she serves as a Greek chorus memory to their certainty of disaster, she also interacts invisibly with the campers to deliver those disasters. She lowers a raven into their midst to steal their food, she delivers beetles on their persons, and she becomes the literal bear in the woods of their nightmare.

There was apparently a third party to their annual camp out who left somehow since the last outing. He probably served as a catalyst between these two. Without him, there doesn’t seem to be much connecting the two remaining except the patience and willingness to concede shown by Erik’s character.

I know it doesn’t sound like much of a plot – sitting in the woods talking in front of a bubble wrap river. But it is their random observations, their reactions to the perfectly normal woodsy things that happen to them, the contrast in character between the two, and the absurdity of Brian’s over-preparedness that make it all so funny. Top it off with Hannah’s unabashedly ridiculous camp counselor and you’ve got a laugh out loud evening of fun.

As usual, every detail of the production was carefully prepared and meticulously executed. From the before-mentioned bubble wrap river to the Darth Vader Pez container to the raven that flies in to the fishing expedition, it’s all there waiting to be enjoyed. So GO – Enjoy!!

-Becky Pineda, May 27, 2016, GetBoulder.com

Two male campers relax in their campsite. One sits in a camp chair and reads a book, while the other knells down to contemplate a fake river made of blue bubble pop.

Littleton Independent- Outdoorsy story naturally funny


Buntport refers to mythology in story about summer camp
A red velvet curtain hangs across the stage area at Buntport Theater this month — unusual. What lies behind it?

A scene in the woods appears as lights go up on “Greetings from Camp Katabasis,” with a small tent, trees and shrubbery, boulders, a little stream and a couple of guys sitting in chairs, talking. A whistle blows and it’s the camp counselor, (a loud, emphatic Hannah Duggan) in life jacket and carrying a paddle. “Now, campers …” She talks awhile about canoeing safely, the near certainty of overturning — and decides these guys probably shouldn’t attempt it.

“Don’t go near the water,” she advises as she leaves the scene. Eric Edborg as the mostly relaxed doofus and Brian Colonna, the nervous fellow, who is prepared for every emergency, with sunscreen, insecticide, flashlights, etc. — in his tent — and a plastic, life-sized Resusci Annie used widely for practicing CPR. She sits silently in another chair between Colonna and the tent — and enters into the storyline later!

The campfire plugs in!

Are these two consigned to some sort of hell — or just a stay in the woods?

Edborg finds a feather as the mismatched pair contemplate nature. (Katabasis, in mythology, can mean a trip to the underworld and back. This spot in the woods with poorly matched companions would be a form of underworld for many!)

Duggan reappears with whistle and talks brightly about hiking. “Stay on dry land,” she commands.

With talk about their “journey,” Edborg speculates about a meteor shower the first week, then goes for a walk and meets a bear. “Everything’s harder here,” Colonna’s wimpy guy whines. He suggests singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

“I’m reading a book that was on the New York Times best-seller list,” Edborg replies. “What am I supposed to do while you read a book from New York?” Colonna whines. In addition to the mythological references, the audience members may chuckle over some unfortunate summer camp memories of their own — and/or find additional references to Greek or Roman mythology.

The cast continues talking non-stop, and laughs are frequent in the audience as silly/clever lines continue unabated. Colonna gets in a bit of CPR practice with Annie and catches a fish. Messages from the loud counselor continue. Where are we anyhow?

Buntport Ensemble’s unique form of literary goofiness provides a delightful way to spend an evening. This is the third journey into mythological realms this spring.

The program promises a reprise of the very clever “Middle Aged People in Boxes” to start the next season. Looking forward to that!

-Sonya Ellingboe, May 23, 2016, littletonindependent.net

Two male campers relax in their campsite. One sits in a camp chair and reads a book, while the other knells down to contemplate a fake river made of blue bubble pop.

Westword- Buntport’s Greetings From Camp Katabasis Leaves You Wanting S’More

In Greetings from Camp Katabasis, two campers are out in nature, annoying the hell out of each other, bickering, philosophizing, attempting to bond and mourning the death of a friend called Chuck.

Katabasis, according to counselor Amie (Friend?) — whose hysterically funny monologues frame the action and is probably just a larger-than-life memory the men carry with them — means some kind of descent: whether literal, into the depths of the self; or into Hades itself. We’re guessing Hades, since the men’s tent is beside a strip of river. We’d love to tell you what the river’s made of, but that would ruin the surprise; you’ll have to see for yourself.

The campers are Pete and Jim, aka Brian Colonna and Erik Edborg, a comedy team as zany, gifted and original as any of the historic greats: Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Goons or the Monty Python gang. Jim is a wonder-filled hippie with long hair, sandals and thick gray socks, who insists they’re on an important journey; Pete, gesticulating, excitable and easily bored, has come ridiculously overprepared, bringing a portable eyeball flusher, a Darth Vader Pez dispenser and a plastic doll called Annie to be used for CPR practice, among other things.

Amie, played by Hannah Duggan, is a figure as monstrous and overwhelming as Nurse Ratched, Miss Hannigan or any nursery-story villainess. She’s fiercely bossy and at the same time utterly ridiculous, warning against every kind of danger, from carrion-ripping ravens to tipped-over canoes to poisonous insects. There’s no way that anyone will get out of Camp Katabasis alive, she warns, fixing the audience with her glittering eyes. You believe her because no one can portray larger-than-life and bordering on the supernatural as well as Duggan.

Buntport Theater Company has been exploring issues of myth and loss all season, and there are some deeper meanings running beneath that river, ideas about reality and illusion, speculation on the nature of the universe and our place in it. What, the campers, wonder periodically, lies on the river’s further shore? The CPR doll is called Annie for a slightly creepy reason, too: Rescue Annie is the name given to such mannequins around the world, and the first Rescue Annie’s face was modeled on the death mask of an unknown young woman found drowned in the Seine in the nineteenth century. This apparent suicide had a slight smile, her eyes seemed about to open, and her death mask was venerated as a symbol of mystery and beauty by artists and poets.

But there’s also talk in Camp Katabasis about such trivial topics as how to ball socks and whether “hokily” is an actual word. The best thing about this production, which lowers the curtain on a truncated but profoundly evocative season, is that you get to see the folks of Buntport at play, and marvel at just how brilliant and funny they are.

-Juliet Wittman, May 19, 2016, Westword

A female art museum security guard stands next to Rembrandt’s painting of Danae. She leans in close and matches the eye line of the painted woman in an attempt to determine what she might be looking at.

Denver Post- “The Rembrandt Room” stars Erin Rollman in Buntport’s first solo show

Erin Rollman is stunning in Buntport’s “The Rembrandt Room”

But, as any good storyteller knows, the bored-looking guard standing beside the painting has a tale at least as interesting as the Greek myth represented on the hallowed canvas.There’s something antiseptic about a windowless gallery housing priceless treasures. The Old Masters are to be worshipped. Paintings in museums are to be revered. Art is untouchable.

On a blank stage save for an over-sized Rembrandt, we encounter a museum guard. She is detatched, with an itchy collar, bland blazer and comfortable shoes, most often called upon to direct visitors to the rest room. Occasionally she asks them to step back from the paintings and refrain from flash photography. Turns out she is a highly opinionated tour guide to matters of art history and feminism. She also guards a rich personal history.

The Buntport tricksters offer their first one-woman show, “The Rembrandt Room,” capitalizing on the sly talents of Erin Rollman. The play fully draws the audience into the painting in question. Literally and metaphorically, we sit in the dark waiting for light. Beams of light accentuate the action onstage, just as Rembrandt, master of shadow and light, directs our gaze to certain movements and actions within the painting of Danaë.

The renowned painting is a life-sized depiction of the character Danaë from Greek mythology, the guard informs us. The painting hangs in Russia’s Hermitage Museum, where the action is set.

The canvas has a loaded history: it was famously attacked in 1985 by an insane visitor who threw acid on it and cut it with a knife. The restoration took years.

Personal restoration is a slow process, too. But as the guard relates her personal despair, triumphs and oddball observations, we come to see her as she sees the Rembrandt: both are masterpieces and survivors. Both deserve scrutiny and appreciation.

Danaë is depicted as welcoming Zeus, who, according to myth, entered her locked chamber and impregnated her in the form of a shower of gold. Danaë gave birth to Perseus as a result and it didn’t end well: Danaë’s father, the King, had a premonition that he would be killed by a son born to Danaë.

The backstory is equally intriguing: Although the artist’s wife was the original model for Danaë, Rembrandt later changed the figure’s face to that of his mistress. As if that factoid isn’t enough to launch a play.

There’s more.

With detours through Catherine the Great, pregnancy issues, rape and the artist’s self-portrait within the painting, posed peeking around a curtain, the guard slowly reveals herself.

She has a way of touching our most human aspects as she peppers us with questions:

Calamaties befall folks all the time, as predicted in ancient myth, right?

Rollman, a co-founder of Buntport, is riveting throughout, taking us on a wild ride through her character’s tragi-comic aspects. She voyages from asexual and inconspicuous part of the background, to fully sexualized reflection of the nude in the painting (is she nude or naked? It’s a point we’re encouraged to contemplate). She convincingly ranges from hilarious to poignant and reaches depths you don’t see coming.

The interplay of Greek myth, a woman’s emotional rehabilitation and the restoration of a damaged canvas successfully echo and ignite in the 90-minute dark comedy. “The Rembrandt Room” is worth a visit ‐ just remember, no flash photography.

-Joanne Ostrow, April 8, 2016, Denver Post

OutFront Buntport Theater Company’s Rembrandt Room

Buntport Theater Company continues its triptych of Greek-myth-inspired plays with an unassuming dark comedy that throws the cult of simple answers into relief. Relief against what, exactly? The museum attendant (and only cast member on stage) reminds the audience early on that Rembrandt’s lighting is famous not for its clarity but for its shadows. Like the chiaroscuro in the painter’s work, the play is as passionate about epiphanies and revelation as it is devoted to anecdotes, sidebars, and footnotes. Some answers come, some don’t, and most of the way is only partly lit. Every age has its unique forms of simple answers. Ours fits them into 15-minute TED Talks and a regular churn of #helpful discretely numbered lists (6 Ways to Live Again after Your Break Up). We click and share these daily, we repeat mantras like “not the what or the how, but the WHY,” to the point of almost religious practice. We believe, on some level, that elegance can save us, and if we are to be rescued from stagnant jobs or disappointing relationships or poor company performance, why shouldn’t the answer emerge clearly and simply

“Welcome to the Rembrandt Room,” the narrator says, banally directing folks to the bathroom and launching into the standard analysis of the piece behind her. The painting is an intimate depiction‐”practically life size”‐of Danaë reclining on a bed moments before she is raped by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold (not to be confused with a golden shower).

Shortly after this simple introduction, however, we cross into alternate interpretations and counter histories of the work. “The longer you look at something,” the museum attendant tells us, “the more you can see the beauty in it.” Her speech, delivered more personally than a lecture, creates a web of meaning from the nude (or is she naked?) painting subject; the mistress and wife of the painter; the legacy and reputation of Catherine the Great, who originally purchased it from Rembrandt; and the 20th century vandal who attacked the painting with a knife, requiring a 12-year restoration process. Like the narrator, many of these women are waiting and hoping for a simpler answer than they have received, leaving the narrator to revise her original claim: “The longer you look at something, the harder it is to see, and the more real.”

Buntport’s choice to stage this play is incredibly risky ‐ pacing is often a challenge in one-actor pieces ‐ but Erin Rollman demonstrates compelling range and depth as the museum attendant, escorting the audience through art history, monarchies, mythologies, and intimate disclosures with ease and wit. The Buntport team’s dynamic script leaves one wanting more of the monologue, rather than less, and the overall effect is the same buoyancy ‐ always earned through complexity ‐ that they’ve shown in earlier productions.

Though the answers aren’t simple for the women of Rembrandt Room, their paths are marked by light and shadow.

-Paul Bindel, April, 18, 2016 OutFront

A female art museum security guard stands in front of Rembrandt’s painting of Danae. She’s looking at something in the distance.

Littleton Independent- ‘Rembrandt Room’ is art for art’s sake

Buntport one-woman show focuses on museum guard
Soon she’s off on a spiel about the painting. The painter Rembrandt’s wife, Saskia, was the model, but the face is that of Geertje, Rembrandt’s lover, hired to care for the couple’s baby son Titus. She stayed on after Saskia died while Titus was still very small and beyond. (The painter couldn’t remarry if he wanted to inherit Saskia’s money.)Lights go up on a large painting of a reclining nude and a uniformed museum guard, played by the versatile and always engaging Erin Rollman of Buntport Theater’s collaborative quintet of actors, writers and directors, who create all the company’s original material.

“Please stay two feet away from the paintings at all times …”

The painting (1836) is of Danaë, the mother of Perseus, we are told. She is reaching up toward Zeus, who will impregnate her with a shower of golden specks … A shadowy figure lurking outside the entrance to the room is a man with a fist full of paintbrushes ‐ one of Rembrandt’s numerous self-portraits.

“The bathrooms are off the stairs to the left …”

Rollman continues to combine comedy and flashes of humor for about 90 minutes as she lectures about history ‐ Katherine the Great owned the painting and we learn tidbits about the legendary Russian monarch as well as the information that a man had slashed the painting with a knife at one point and it took 12 years to repair it.

Every so often a scratchy radio sputters to life with a message to the guard ‐ or her phone rings …

But for almost 90 minutes, this inventive actress entertains the audience with a mix of mythology, history and goofiness.

Buntport fans and those looking for something new and different will want to visit the “Rembrandt Room” soon.

-Sonya Ellingboe April 15, 2016, Littletonindependent.net

A female art museum security guard reclines on an upholstered bench in front of a Rembrandt’s painting of Danae. The guard reclines in the same manner as Danae in the painting.

Westword- The Rembrandt Room Is a Buntport Masterpiece

Every now and then, an artist ‐ or, in the case of Buntport Theater Company, an artists’ mind meld ‐ seems to pass through a metaphorical doorway. For more than a decade now, Buntport has been one of the bright lights on the local theater scene. With their company-created original works, members are capable of truly inspired goofiness, including a production based on Hamlet in which Ophelia was played by a goldfish swimming circles in a round bowl, giving a whole new meaning to Queen Gertrude’s lament, “Your sister’s drowned, Laertes”; light, laugh-outright comedy like their musical take on Titus Andronicus; grotesquerie; pensiveness; and intellectual inquisitiveness and moments of singular beauty, such as the one in Kafka on Ice when the writer sends a short story to his beloved Felice. In her hands, it unfurls into the paper figure of a man, and she dances with it. “The writing does quite well with her,” Kafka observes

Over the course of the production, the guide talks about many interesting things. How we see and judge art. The difference between nude and naked. Her dislike for Titian’s version of Danaë. The role of Catherine the Great ‐ the powerful patron of the arts who’s primarily remembered now for sniggering and apocryphal stories about the way she died ‐ in the painting’s history. Mythic and cultural views of women. Good as Buntport’s plays have always been, The Rembrandt Room, a long monologue by a guide watching over said room in Russia’s Hermitage Museum, reaches new heights. It’s transcendent, a brilliant work of art. The guide, played by Erin Rollman, stands by Rembrandt’s “Danaë.” She directs people to the restrooms, tells them to stay two feet away from the paintings, forbids the use of flash photography. And she returns again and again to the painting itself, where Danaë is shown naked, reclined on cushions, gazing toward the light falling through a gap in some draperies. The guide tells Danaë’s story: Having heard a prophecy that he would be killed by her son, her father imprisoned her underground so that she could never bear a child. But Zeus, that randy shape-changer, entered her dungeon in the form of a shower of bright coins and impregnated her.

The attack on the painting by a madman who poured acid on it and slashed Danaë’s belly in 1985, and the twelve years it took to get it restored. Rembrandt’s changes to Danaë’s face and changes that might have occurred during restoration. Rembrandt’s use of light, the mysteries of darkness and light. But the guide isn’t just giving us an art-appreciation lesson; she puts her own spin and interpretation on all of these ideas. Certain facts return again and again, and each time the meaning is deeper or a little different. The text is allusive, densely layered; you could keep yourself busy separating all the strands and contemplating them one by one. But you don’t want to get lost in an academic exercise; the point of this display is the nervous, spurty, ridiculous movements of the guide’s mind. She isn’t just anyone; she’s somebody very specific.

And this somebody is a figure that only Rollman, with her unique and considerable talents as an actor, could create. At first the guide seems eccentric ‐ if not quite mad ‐ with her nervous gestures, her weird laugh, the way her voice gets uncomfortably shrill here and there. She’s funny and silly and also tragic, particularly as you come to sense the echoes of her own life she finds in Rembrandt’s painting. But even when she’s most moving, catching at your heart with a moment of profound and mysterious grief, the guide undercuts herself with an ironic comment, tiny joke or apparent non sequitur. I’d call this is a tour-de-force performance, but that implies something flashier and more self-conscious ‐ almost an insult to the deep, clear truth of Rollman’s work.

But Rollman didn’t create this piece of theater alone. The script was written by the entire company, which includes felllow Colorado College grads Brian Colonna, Hannah Duggan, Erik Edborg and SamAnTha Schmitz in a process I’ve never understood; I’d have expected writing like this to require solitude. But perhaps after all their years together, these artists have actually taken up residence in each others’ minds ‐ and the result is beautiful.

-Juliet Wittman, April 12, 2016 Westword

A female art museum security guard sits on an upholstered bench facing Rembrandt’s painting of Danae.

Get Boulder- The Rembrandt Room

If you want to see one of the best performances of the year, run to the nearest phone and call Buntport for a ticket to THE REMBRANDT ROOM. A one-woman show at turns funny, educational, and poignant, this is a tour de force performance by Erin Rollman that will linger in the memory of audience members for decades. She stands toe-to-toe with Laura Norman’s GROUNDED fighter pilot of last season, Deb Curtis’ capricious SHIRLEY VALENTINE and Deb Persoff’s ROSE in years past.

With a bad haircut and dressed in a poorly fitting and obviously uncomfortable uniform, she stands guard in the Rembrandt room in the Hermitage Art Museum. Bored and desperate for action besides directing patrons to the bathrooms, she begins to display her considerable knowledge about Rembrandt’s painting of Danaë in front of which she stands each day all day.

In her lighthearted and self-admitted suspect discourse on the painting and art in general, she manages to touch on a variety of diverse subjects. Her “lesson” becomes more like a conversation full of asides and interruptions. Freemasonry, the life of Catherine the Great, her lover Potemkin, Rembrandt’s lighting techniques, the Greek Danaë myth — all became grist for her script. Her own slight disorder of the mind is revealed through her insistence of a flash of light in the corner that only she can see and her scratchy intercom conversation with Catherine. It is so sweet how all the aspects of her ramblings come together. In addition to explaining aspects of the composition and its history in her own quirky way, she also defends Catherine the Great who purchased the painting in 1772. Small details about her own feelings about the painting and her personal life begin to be dropped into the conversation. She discloses that the painting was vandalized in 1985 by a “madman” who stabbed Danaë in the abdomen and threw sulfuric acid on the surface. It was only put back on display after a twelve year restoration project. As more and more of her sad personal history is revealed, her emotional connection to the work emerges. She, like the painting, has layers stripped away and is still in need of repair. A staff member of the Museum made the comment that “the logic of restoration takes its own course.” We learn that our guard’s restoration is still under way. She bears the same physical scars as Danaë after the man with a knife did his damage.

It is so difficult to understand how a script like this could have been developed. It feels so much like an “off the top of the head” evening. It is as though there is no script; that Erin is just ad libbing random thoughts from her ever-present notebook of factoids. Another Buntport member when asked after the show how the writing developed replied modestly, “It’s what we do.”

Erin’s performance – if you haven’t gotten that by now – is phenomenal. Her boredom is complete (but fun to watch) and accompanied by fidgety adjustment of her clothing; her joy at finding an audience is almost manic; her personal revelations are so subtle and guardedly revealed as to become painful. Her audience laughed with and at her, patiently sat through her periods of boredom as she waited for patrons to leave so she could talk to us again, and shared her personal grief. We were riveted for the full ninety minutes. DON’T MISS THIS ONE!!!

A WOW factor of 10!!!

-Beki Pineda, April, 12, 2016 GetBoulder.com