BWW Reviews: MUSEUM is a Quick-Paced, Rambunctious Satire

MUSEUM plays the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at St. Edwards University, located at 3001 S. Congress Ave, Austin 78704, now thru Sunday, October 6th. Performances are Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $8-$22. For tickets and information, please visit www.stedwards.edu/theatre

Austin has seen its fair share of art about art recently. Penfold Theatre's Red explored the relationship between the bombastic artist Marc Rothko and his pupil. Paper Chairs recently staged a brilliant original piece titled Art Show/Model Show in which five figure models discussed the joys and difficulties of baring it all for the sake of art. Now St Edwards University's Department of Performing Arts produces Museum, an episodic comedy which explores various visitors to a modern art exhibit. Though art about art has been all over Austin as of late, there's always room for one more production provided it's as good as this. Museum is a bold, laugh-out-loud farce thaT Lovingly mocks the pretentiousness often found in both modern art and those who claim to love and understand it.

The play, written by Tina Howe in 1976, feels like a longer (and smarter) Saturday Night Live sketch. The play is a plotless character study in which people from all walks of life visit the closing day of a modern art exhibit titled "The Broken Silence." The exhibit features pieces by three different artists. One has provided a series of "seascapes and landscapes" which are in fact nothing but blank white canvases. Another has created severAl Small sculptures made from animal bones and feathers, and a third has given the gallery an installation piece featuring mannequins hanging from a clothesline. As a strange assortment of guests-many of them on their worst behavior-enters the gallery, the patience of the gallery's security guard (Jarrett King) begins to wane.

As we meet the art patrons and hear their thoughts on the pieces in front of them, we begin to see that Howe's thoughts on art and art patrons are of a decidedly cynical slant. Some of the visitors mock the blank canvases while others debate whether the seascapes allegedly depicted on them are better than the landscapes. Another observes that the best thing about museums isn't the art but the windows and further exclaims that someone should create a museum featuring no art and just windows so people can stand inside and enjoy the natural beauty on the other side of a pane of glass. Nearly everyone tries to steal a clothespin from the clothesline installation. As these bizarre and somewhat intellectually challenged characters talk, you desperately want to distance yourself from them and wish to say, "No art lover is like this." Still, the more they carry on, the more you reminisce on conversations you've heard in art museums before, many of which include statements that are just as baffling in their stupidity. If art depends on the patronage of idiots like this, it seems art may become an endangered species, but while Howe seems outraged, it's clear she also sees the humor in the situation.

The major challenge of the play is Howe's slew of characters (40 to be exact, played here by a 20 person cast) and countless overlapping conversations. The staging by David Long keeps the large cast swirling around the gallery, brilliantly and realistically designed by Leilah Stewart, and the pacing is as quick and crisp as an Aaron Sorkin piece. As Museum is an ensemble piece in which most characters get no more than a handful of minutes of stage time, it's tough to discuss the performers individually, though all are able to create fully realized and exceptionally quirky characters (Hats off to costume designer Susan Branch Towne for giving each character a distinctive look as well). Austin favorite Babs George is as delightful as ever in her trio of roles (she particularly shines as socialite/fashionista Barbara Zimmer who visits the gallery with her best friend, also named Barbara), and David Stahl is hysterical as the snooty, faux-hawed Robert. Jarrett King is equally fantastic as the grouchy and increasingly frustrated guard who seems to be the only sane person in the museum.

Theatregoers who expect a plot driven comedy may initially think Museum is as pointless as the art iT Lovingly mocks, but even they would be won over within minutes. Museum quickly proves to be a satiric gem, and Tina Howe's biting commentary on art is perfect material for the artists at St. Edwards University.

Some may think the state of the arts is at a low point, but at St. Edwards University, the arts-at least the theatrical ones-are thriving.

Top Photo: (From Left) David Cameron Allen, David Stahl and Curtis Allmon in Museum. Photo by Bret Brookshire.

Bottom Photo: Babs George (L) and Hannah Marie Fonder (R) in Museum. Photo by Bret Brookshire.

Running time: Approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes with no intermission.

NOTE: Contains adult language. Recommended for mature audiences only.

MUSEUM plays the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at St. Edwards University, located at 3001 S. Congress Ave, Austin 78704, now thru Sunday, October 6th. Performances are Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $8-$22. For tickets and information, please visit www.stedwards.edu/theatre

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