BWW Reviews: Bated Breath’s HUNGER is Both Feast and Famine through October 2

Hunger
by Chantal Bilodeau
Directed by Helene Kvale
Performed by Bated Breath Theatre Company
at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street in Hartford, CT through October 2
www.realartways.org

Bated Breath Theatre Company and playwright Chantal Bilodeau show insight into our collective subconscious at the beginning of their immersive theatre experience Hunger, playing now through October 2 at Hartford's home for edgy artistry, Real Art Ways.  As we watch actors seductively and suggestively drizzle tempered chocolate over deliciously round, cream-filled profiteroles we are watching something akin to the "money shot" in pornography.  Yes, chocolate can be better than sex.  And in this at-times-fascinating and at-times-frustrating meditation on consumption, consumerism and classism, Bilodeau and Bated Breath weave a tale that leaves the audience - like some desserts and sexual encounters - sated, but wanting.  In other words, I left a little hungry.

The hollowness of life in America is at the heart of Hunger.  Bilodeau posits that, at one extreme, the lower classes gravitate toward the cheap and disposable as imposed by this nation's wealthy one percent.  On the other hand, the cultured and wealthy elite congregate at stultifying cocktail parties and flock to boutiques to embrace hollow luxuries.  In other words, there are those that are satisfied with Hershey's syrup and there are others who embrace fair trade, humanely-harvested, smoky note-infused, imported South American cocoa.  It is a fascinating, if simplistic, assessment and, at either end of the spectrum, we end up looking like assholes.   Maybe in a country with a disappearing middle class, this may seem accurate, but in my estimation there are a quantity of people who reside in the center - people who appreciate both a profiterole and a Dunkin' Donut.

An unusual and exciting direction for Hartford, Hunger is staged as environmental and, sometimes, experimental theatre.  The audience becomes an active participant in the work as you move between four of Real Art Ways' funky gallery spaces.  This, in and of itself, is a novelty for this town and a welcome dash of downtown New York in central Connecticut.  When experiences like the immersive Sleep No More go directly from Boston to New York barely stopping to honk and wave as they speed down I-95, it feels as if Hartford seldom gets to delight in this daring style of theatre.  Having Real Art Ways add theatre to its palette of art, music, film, lecture and performance art offerings further expands the institution's range as a premier presenter of the cutting edge.  Hopefully, RAW and Bated Breath can continue and deepen their relationship.

The play centers around three characters - Charles deMarquet, the embodiment of artistic and sexual passion; his wife Christa, the frustrated moral center of the piece; and a woman at times known as Maxine and at others as Carol, an enigmatic predator.  The performers - David McCamish, Joni Weisfeld and Mara Lieberman - all go for the gusto with their performances and grapple with the each other as they come to terms with the art vs. commerce battle at the center of the piece.  The confusion of sex, food, money and emptiness is no mean feat to tackle and they rise to the challenge.

Beginning in the deMarquet's chocolate shop/bakery, the audience is invited to mill about in a brightly lit art gallery-cum-kitchen.  Wine-fueled chatter halts with a sensual profiterole demonstration by Charles and Christa.  The audience is treated to a gooey profiterole dripping with chocolate; one eats with one's fingers, highlighting the sexual nature of the experience. 

We move into a darkened corridor where the mysterious Maxine delights in bashing chocolate wrappers into a wall and invites the audience to do the same.  As such, we are indulging in the superficial pleasures of the wrapping, not what lies within.  The audience then trundles a few more feet into a cocktail party at Goldova Chocolatiers - a mass-produced, high-end confection for the wealthy.  It is the most awkward stop on the audience's journey thus far as the space is inadequate for the sequence or the dancing that we are encouraged to join.  The deMarquet's are also out of place as Charles desperately wants to be a part of the scene and Christa desperately wants to leave.  Enter Maxine and exit the audience as we move to our fourth and final destination.

When we arrive a few feet away in the largest gallery space, we are invited to sit in a more traditional theatre atmosphere, a two-tiered playing space flanked by audience on risers on two sides.  Unfortunately in this location, Bilodeau and director Helene Kvale begin to struggle with the form of the piece:  does it want to be abstract like Maxine's sequence in the hallway or does it want to be more of an erotic drama or a corporate farce like we have seen in the cocktail/dance sequence?  Hunger tries to have it all ways.  Some portions are highly stylized with choreographed movement (courtesy of Greg Webster).  Other portions are a more traditional dramatic portrait of marital conflict.  And yet other portions aspire to wacky farce, lampooning corporate America and artistic sellouts.  Once seated in the large gallery, the audience loses much of its role in the play as we sit idly, instead of actively, watching the portrait of the deMarquet's marriage devolve into a lust triangle/ménage au chocolat. 

The thing that makes immersive theatre like Sleep No More so beguiling is the complete submersion into the world of the play.  I am not sure Hunger knows what its world is yet as it is so busy commenting on facets of our world.  As this is a premiere, my hope is that Bated  Breath Theatre Company and Bilodeau continue to develop the piece to find the voice and the heart that lies at the knotty center of the play.  Drawing parallels between our national proclivity to crave empty calories while hungering for something more is worthwhile.  By decisively drawing her characters and honing the voice of the play, Bilodeau could have a keeper. 

Bated Breath has not let Bilodeau down as the production elements are more than fine.  The women's costumes literally drip chocolate and Charles's costume features chocolate-colored accents.  Kudos to Laura Crow and Sachiko Komuro for the effective and intriguing costuming.  Mike Billings' set is deceptively simple and serves the galleries well, minus setting the dance sequence in insufficient space.  The sound design by David Sanderson ricochets between cocktail music and electronic, only occasionally stumbling with some sound cue misfires at the performance I viewed.  The lighting design by Chad Lefebvre is a highlight with each space lit to maximum effect.

Despite my reservations about the play, Hunger is a commendable, complex and ambitious effort for a relative newcomer to the Hartford scene.  The production is something that a seasoned company would struggle to achieve after many years of work.  Here is hoping that Bated Breath becomes a mainstay of the community and continues to stretch the definition of theatre for a community bred on prosceniums and thrust spaces.  And here's hoping they continue serving chocolate.

Photo by Max Lipka

 

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