Buntport Theater

show-2

A trapdoor has been cut into a giant bed. A woman is coming out of the trap door and seems to be waving at the camera.

Go Go Mag- 2 in one

Aw … isn’t it cute? Look at those fingers, look at those wiggly little toes! And that … claw … and my, look at that big tail! There’s a new member of Denver’s theatre family and the relatives are going to be really proud of this one all right. Bouncing baby Buntport arrived at the Phoenix March 15, and the fact that it has six heads is a good thing, folks. Really it is. You see, as emerging theatre companies go, six stable, gifted, collaborative artists is more than enough. Especially when they write their own material and throw all known boundaries and paradigms aside.

They played to a large house at the Phoenix, and although that in itself is good news, the better news is that Buntport has just leased permanent space. The group is in the process of creating a black box stage that will be opening soon.

The sooner the better, I might add. Buntport stages original creations, thematically rooted in literary classics. The work, though, is stretched so far beyond the veil of the canon as to give rise to something completely different, yet recognizable–and glitteringly funny.

2 in 1 pits James Thurber against … that unknown guy or priest or, well, whoever wrote Beowulf. During the first act (nine quickies based on Thurber short stories), I was convinced Thurber was going to win the day. I mean we are talking Thurber here, and Act I does start out with two men and two women in bed and all. The audience was laughing right off the bat– that’s the first story, see– “Mr. Monroe vs. The Bat.”  Well, anyway, by the time the bat bit was done, all the finite details of the piece came winging through the theatre. And even though Thurber was one of the finest word surgeons ever, Buntport had sewn in enough comedy to keep the audience in stitches.

The entire retinue of nine scenes was outstanding, both literarily and comically speaking. Act I managed to promote a profound appreciation for Thurber’s work and words, while at the same time, spotlighting Buntport’s creatively comic ever-sharpening edge. Highlights, in fact, were many. But particularly impressive was the dual tandem acting scene in “Helpful Hints and the Hoveys.” The absolute knock-out bit of Act I, though, was “The Evening’s at Seven,” a play in which only one phrase is uttered on stage, but which is an enchantingly poignant, expertly executed piece of experimental theater. The piece is not so overcast and dark as to make the mood heavy, but provides a perfect dose of dramatic relief.

And then there’s Act II, “Word-Horde,” a dramatization of the study guide to Beowulf. Now, even though I’d pit Thurber’s brains against Beowulf’s brawn any day, I gotta tell you, the big dummy won the stage, though more to the credit of the Buntport group than the work. Hand-woven paper claws, fantastic timing and dialogue, and nifty movement between the reenactment and the CliffsNotes team had the audience entirely jovial and begging for more, to the degree that when the evening finally ended, no one would leave. That’s right, we witnessed a play about Beowulf, and we so much wanted more that we clung to our seats for a while when it was over. I’ve actually read Beowulf folks, and all I can tell you is that it’s not the kind of read you go in for a second time. To have a staged event based upon Beowulf which leaves the audience practically crying for more is nothing short of miraculous.

Now, I’m a big fan of comedy, but often I find it artistically lacking. Not so with 2 in 1. The Buntport team understands subtle nuance, timing, background setting and set design. They also understand when to break scenes, when to cull the laughter and when to turn it on. And, best of all they understand dramatic action. This, friends means that Buntport is presenting not just comedy, but High Comedy. You know, something along the lines of Shakespeare’s comedies, complete with wit, charm, laughs, intelligence, rhythm, discernible meter, fully developed characters and so on. Additionally, the work is experimental and fresh as a crocus in February, making for great theatre and even better comedy.

-Cilicia Yakhlef, March 29 – April 11, 2001, Go-Go Magazine

A screaming person is wearing a crown made of paper that has the word water printed all over it. On top of that crown is an origami boat made of paper that has the word boat printed all over it.

Rocky mountain news- Buntport’s one-acts are a hoot

One year ago, Buntport Theater showed its promise with Quixote, a satire of academia. Now the group delivers with 2 in 1, a sublime combination of one-acts developed by Buntport’s six members that provokes so much laughter it leaves cheeks aching.

The first act, . . . and this is my significant bother, contains adaptations of nine short stories by James Thurber, all dealing with marriage. The stories are presented in ’40s period dress and a dazzling variety of styles. The sole set piece, a raked bed, is transformed into sofa, car and other guises on which these goofy adults play out their foibles. After killing a spider for his wife, a man (Brian Colonna) cowers in bed, terrorized by a bat. A Brooklyn couple (Colonna and Hannah Duggan) fantasizes confrontations carried out by alter egos (Erik Edborg and Erin Rollman) standing behind the bed. In the most adventurous piece, a story is read over the sound system as lights come up for glimpses of the silent characters depicted. The scene plays out like a fotonovela, frozen images that pop out of the dark and burn into the retina.

The four actors (assisted offstage by company members Matt Petraglia and Samantha Schmitz) create wonderful, New Yorker-type cartoon characters, and their four disparate physical types complement the portrayals. Colonna’s old-fashioned, large-size facial expressions are both sweet and laughable, particularly when he plays a meek little man trying to woo his wife into the cellar so he can kill her. Edborg, tall and blond, gets the flummoxed leading man roles. Rollman has a pointed little face and takes on a breathy, slight lisp, while Duggan defies matronly harridan stereotypes even as she celebrates them.

Inconceivably, things get even better with the second act, Word-Horde, a dramatization of the study guide (that is, CliffsNotes) to Beowulf. A voiceover announces that the production is “intended as a supplementary aid to serious audience members. It is not a substitute for the text itself or a dramatic re-enactment of the text.” So don’t think you can get out of seeing the Olde English version.

Wearing laborers’ jumpsuits with prop-laden tool belts, the four actors do hilarious quickie performances of sections of the text, then run back through them for the commentary.  Their props are made entirely of computer printouts covered in the name of the object they represent. So a paper crown has the word crown printed in gold, dozens of times. When Grendel loses an arm, streamers fly out with the word blood printed in red. This isn’t just silly; it’s a great wink at postmodernism, textual analysis and symbolism — as well as a cheap prop. The book’s dragon is a magnificent paper puppet with moving arm and tongue and a tail that wraps around the back of the stage.

The production never misses an opportunity for a joke, whether it’s grafting Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson onto a Beowulf family tree or explaining why dead royalty was buried with jewel-studded armor. He needs things for the afterlife: “The implication, therefore, is that there are a lot of expensive costume parties in heaven.”

Both halves of 2 in 1 reveal a theater company absolutely sure of its mission and the path toward accomplishing it. New works, developed in collaboration and presented with startling innovation, are an exhilarating gift for theater lovers.

-Lisa Bornstein, March 23, 2001, Rocky Mountain News

 

A man is pictured standing behind the headboard of a large bed. The man has positioned himself with hands and head pushed through openings in the headboard to make it seem like he’s been locked in a stockade.

Gazette- ‘Significant Bother’ Portrays Misery of Marriage in Charmings Vignettes

As a rule, plays usually begin about the time the characters enter the stage. But little about Buntport Theater’s elegant and hilarious “…and this is my significant bother” goes according to the rules. Before the show starts, the four members of the troupe are peacefully snuggled together like spoons in the bed that’s the show’s main prop; at the start of the show, they all arise and exit.

This is only the first charming touch in the group’s nimble theatrical adaptation of eight tales by James Thurber, which I recommend unreservedly to anyone who’s still alert by the 11 p.m. starting time. Perhaps nobody has made unhappy American married life quite so funny as Thurber, and these multiple visions of wedded hell make for a delightful hour of comic vignettes.

The Denver-based group, whose name comes from a mangling of “Kennebuckport,” was formed in 1996. Its members, Hannah Duggan, Erik Edborg, Erin Rollman, and Brian Colonna – three former Colorado College students and a current one – are fine character actors all, and as a group, their timing is nearly perfect. In this, their second production, they made me impatient to see their third.

Broadly speaking, it’s not difficult to turn Thurber’s prose into theater; but Buntport Theater deserves praise for turning it into such good theater. The most imaginative adaptations are “Helpful Hints and the Hoveys,” in which Edborg and Rollman, standing behind the bed, portray the refined self-images of the dozing Colonna and Duggan, and “The Evening’s at Seven,” the show’s one poignant moment, which is presented as a series of momentary tableaux while Rollman speaks the text offstage.

Colonna is especially good as the hapless Mr. Monroe, who vanquishes a spider but finds himself overmatched by a bat; as Mr. Hovey, attempting to take a magazine’s advice of “cutting down on the intensity of your thoughts a half-hour before retiring”; and as Mr. Preeble sweetly saying to his wife, “Dear, let’s go down to the cellar!”

The rubber-faced Duggan shows off her terrific fidgeting skills while waiting for her husband to finish eating in the venomous “A Couple of Hamburgers.” As Mrs. Preeble, she’s perhaps the most efficient of Thurber’s cruelly efficient women – directing her husband on how best to do away with her. “Any other husband would have buried his wife in the summer!”, she complains.

As the husband in “A Couple of Hamburgers,” Edborg irritates his wife on as many levels as possible. And he gets perhaps the evening’s biggest laugh as Mr. Bidwell, speaking in his own defense.

Rollman may show the greatest range, from the demure wife in “The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery,” to the shrill Mrs. Bidwell, telling the judge that “the bond that had held us together snapped rather more easily than I’d thought possible,” to the coldly confidant Mrs. Monroe.

Technically, the show comes from the “three planks and a passion” school: a bed that turns into the front seat of a car or the door to the cellar; the sound of bat wings zooming around the room; and some effective Thurber-era popular music.

But in this production the low-tech is a plus, not a minus, as it focuses our attention more closely on the acting and, especially, on Thurber’s inexhaustible imaginative vision of married life, depicted through characters who are endearingly stoic in the face of their absurd situations.

-Mark Arnest, circa 2001, Colorado Springs’ Gazette

A trapdoor has been cut into a giant bed. A woman is coming out of the trap door and seems to be waving at the camera.

Independent- Domestic Blisters: Thurber stories a hit

One of the freshest productions to grace local stages this season comes from a new adaptation of some half-century-old stories, celebrating the distinctive humor in the pages of James Thurber’s short fiction. Buntport Theater has adapted nine Thurber stories focusing on the quest for matrimonial bliss, staging the production in the intimate confines of the Smokebrush Cabaret.

The play is performed by a four-member ensemble who brilliantly capture the characteristic quality of Thurber’s atmospheric comic scenes, mostly from the ’30s and ’40s.

Brian Colona stands out for his chameleon-like movement from role to role, including domestic victims such as title characters in “Mr. Monroe vs. The Bat,” “Helpful Hints and the Hoveys” and “Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife.” Colona draws on a wealth of facial expressions to transport us from one convincing character to another, moving from a milquetoast husband who earns accolades for killing spiders to a brusque man dreaming of ways to improve his wife in a scene reminiscent of Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners.

Hanna Duggan gives memorable performances bringing Thurber women to life in scenes like “A Couple of Hamburgers” and “The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery.” The former features spousal tension talk in its highest incarnation, playing off Erik Edborg as the two search for a suitably cute roadside diner. Duggan demonstrates remarkable fluency in her expressive body language, and she can control a scene with the pinpoint piercing of her glare. Edborg also shines in an innovative scene called “The Evening’s at Seven,” in which the story is told through a dozen freeze-frame images accompanied by narration, giving the impression of an old-fashioned story told through photographs. Erin Rollman completes the self-directed ensemble with elastic performances throughout the evening, delivering textured interpretations five minutes at a time.

Another noteworthy innovation is the central set piece, a raked bed that can be morphed into the inside or outside of a car, a city street, a courtroom and the basement (complete with trapdoor) of the Preble home. The hour-long show has an 11 p.m. curtain to accommodate Smokebrush’s mainstage production and makes a perfect nightcap of creative comedy.

-Owen Perkins, circa 1999, Colorado Springs’ Independent