Review: Theatre de la Ville's IONESCO SUITE at BAM's Fishman Space is Absurdly Engaging and Existentially Freeing

Seven figures in garish, ghoulish makeup and outrageous attire gather around a long table where they appear to have come to commemorate a festive occasion, but end up attacking and ridiculing the forlorn-looking lad wearing a wayward, pointed party hat who is seated at the top of the rectangular apparatus that serves more as a dissecting table than place for joyful gathering. This family feast seems to be focused on tearing apart the poor fellow with dramatic lamentations about his person in French. Welcome to the first of a succession of demented dinner parties thrown over the course of a deliriously delightful and engrossingly entertaining evening of absolute absurdity, compliments of Theatre de la Ville's Ionesco Suite at BAM's Fisher Theater.

The Parisian company -- directed by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota since 2008 and featuring actors who have worked with Demarcy-Mota for over a decade -- have chosen to serve the works by celebrated French-Romanian Theatre of the Absurd playwright, Eugene Ionesco, a la carte. The veritable feast of Ionesco's most delectable offerings includes a heaping sample platter of a mashup sourced from Jack, or The Submission, Delirium for Two, The Bald Soprano, The Lesson and Conversation and French Speech Exercises. One of the greatest benefits of presenting work from this style in this particular non-linear and hodgepodge manner is that it doesn't have to line up or be logical -- non sequitur is precisely the point.

There is something immensely satisfying (almost indulgently so) and freeing about watching Theatre of the Absurd, when done as well as the troupe of exceptionally talented actors -- Charles Roger-Bour, Jauris Casanova, Sandra Faure, Sarah Karbasnikoff, Stephane Krahenbuhl, Walter N'Guyen and Gerald Maillet -- who are willing to thrust themselves to the edge while still maintaining complete control and total devotion to their character's realities. This style of theatre (and literature) was born in the post-WWII era and has elements and influences from existentialism, Dadaism, surrealism, pataphysics, tragicomedy and even aspects of vaudeville, and Comedia del Arte -- particularly in the use of "stock" exaggerated or stereotypical caricatures.

Literary absurdists include Albert Camus and Jean Paul-Sartre (though Ionesco loathed Sartre and criticized his support of Communism and blind devotion to a cause) and -- in addition to Ionesco -- playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and later on, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Edward Albee (and, I would argue, Nicky Silver and Christopher Durang) have all penned works considered to be part of the absurdist club. The interesting thing about movements like that of The Absurd, is that they tend to arise from incredibly tense times and offer razor-sharp clever, witty and intelligent observations about humanity, their existence, and society.

Today's media and news feel like a 24-hour cycle of the most outrageous absurdity that watching such nonsensical exchange and petty, childish, irrational and over-the-top behaviors in characters safely confined to the stage and fiction (though intimately up-close and personal with the audience) felt as refreshing, liberating and gratifying. This is where such ridiculousness belongs, but in showing it, the players also pointed the mirror back at society (especially the current one) revealing a lot of outlandish actions and attitudes that may feel a bit too close to home for comfort for some. Remember, laughter is a relief of tension. And plenitude of uproarious laughter abounded.

There were some elements of Japanese Butoh -- another performative product of post-WWII -- particularly with the white and ghoulish makeup design by Catherine Nicholas and the messy elements of food, liquid and fire (in a candelabra and on a cake), but the production is a hallmark of French -- especially Parisian theatre -- from which the Absurdists arose out of the Rive Gauche avant-garde phenomenon at the time which then spread like a social disease to the rest of the world. Marie Antoinette is accused of remarking callously, "Let them eat cake," when informed that the peasantry had no bread. Theatre de la Ville's production of Ionesco Suite ensures that everyone gets their cake, but not to eat, hopefully; this is not a dinner theater experience or immersive engagement where the cast proffers the attendees little treats -- instead, the cake, champagne and other sundries are slung at each other so haphazardly by the cast that if an innocent bystander should be hit with a chunk of confection, so be it. (I was fortunate enough to have a huge glob of cake fly twenty feet in air and land smack dab on my critic's notebook as I was busy furiously scribbling notes. Serves me right, and if that is not the pinnacle of both absurdism and existentialism, then what is?).

The use of the original French language elevated Ionesco's work and words and offered them their proper context and musicality or starkness that the text in English could not have conveyed in the same way. I feel that if there were no subtitles the piece was so equally irrational and obvious in its intentions that it would have been (somewhat) understandable to non-native speakers, but two things must be noted: One, the audience in attendance that evening featured large amount of French-speakers who clearly were in on a lot of jokes lost on Americans (a woman behind me said at one point towards the finale, "Are they just speaking in nonsense gibberish?" when they used a rapid-fire succession of multiple play-on-words or made irrational statements, but if one stopped looking at the translated text and just listened, the poetry would cut through the bizarre and lay bare the author's intentions). Two, the translations, in ease of legibility, timing and clarity context -- especially, it must be noted, for an irreverent piece -- were some of the best I have ever seen. Bravo to set and lighting designer Yves Collet for tackling that usually insurmountable challenge so brilliantly.

The wild abandon of the often selfish, reliably awkward, at times cruel and always ridiculous (but still very human and relatable at times) characters of Ionesco's world portrayed by the phenomenal talents of Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota's Theatre de la Ville's primary players shows us just how truly preposterous this world has become when their onstage antics seem semi-normal and their ludicrous, illogical world seems a welcome comfort to the current reality.

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