Andrew Grusetskie and Michael Toomey
What’s the connection between
exploring Antarctica and getting fired from an
insurance company that’s desperately downsizing after an economic meltdown?
None, you might say, save that in both cases you find yourself out in the cold.
Well, if that’s your answer then you’re just not creative, or at least not as
creative as playwright Nick Ryan and Split Knuckle Theatre, for the two have
joined forces to create “Endurance,” a sprightly, inventive piece of physical
theater that just opened at Long
Wharf
In a book about directors of
musicals, Graciela Daniele is quoted as saying that the audience is “the final
collaborator.” Proof of this can be found if you attend “Endurance,” for the
audience is called upon to do some work – not physical, but a bit of imagining
to make the play come to life, for the four skilled actors are given only three
desks, three waste baskets, a filing cabinet and a coat tree to work with yet
are charged with creating not only a bustling office but also a ship being
slowly crushed by ice and its crew surviving on ice floes. That they
successfully accomplish this…and more…is a credit not only to them but the
audience’s ability to “fill in the blanks.” In his book on Broadway directors,
author Larry Thelen notes: “An audience that has to work a bit throughout the
experience is an audience that is more dedicated to it.”
There are really two plays going on
here. The first deals with the aforementioned insurance company and four of its
employees who are hanging on by their fingernails as those about them get the
axe. One of them, an insecure office drone named Walter Spivey (Christopher
Hirsh) fears the worst when he is called before the faceless powers that be – they’re
faceless because they have the waste baskets covering their heads, one of the
many delightful transformations and visual tropes that occur during the play.
Expecting to be let go, he is instead given a promotion and charged with not
only managing his department but also seeing that over 4,000 back-logged
insurance claims are handled in a three-month period. Suddenly he has been put
in charge of the three men with whom he has been working and he doesn’t believe
he’s up to the task.
Seeking guidance, Spivey goes to
the library (the company won’t fund sending him to a seminar or even approve
the expense of his buying a book on management – the executives even caution
him about late fees on any book he gets from the library). In the library, in a
hilarious scene, he searches the shelves, pulling down various books written by
self-improvement gurus. Finally, he stumbles upon a different sort of book –
“Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” -- which details the harrowing
experience of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his 28-man crew and their two-year
ordeal while attempting to explore Antarctica .
This book becomes Spivey’s guide, and his finding it creates the connection
between the first play and the second, a dramatization of Shackleton’s
experiences.
Once the two “plays’ are
established, the four actors – Hirsh, Jason Bohon, Andrew Grusetskie, and Greg
Webster -- seamlessly shift back and forth in time: at one moment they are
harried employees, the next they are crew members fighting for their lives. In
these time shifts they are, amazingly, able to create quite believable
characters, with Webster taking on the role of Shackleton.
Jason Bohan, Michael Toomey,
| Greg Weber and Andrew Grusetskie
| Greg Weber and Andrew Grusetskie
With minimal costume changes – just
some hats and a shawl, really – the actors bring to life a host of characters
while physically manipulating the few props they have – chief among them the
desks, which serve as, among other things, a shower, an elevator, several boats
and menacing towers of ice. Assisted by lighting designer Dan Rousseau, with
music by Ken Clark (there’s no credit for sound design, but whoever is
responsible should get some type of award), the four actors…with the help of
the audience…create two distinctly different, menacing, believable worlds, and
the great thing is, there are laughs aplenty, especially when we are in the
“insurance” world, for playwright Ryan has a quiver full of barbs, all
dedicated to corporate America, and they are often razor sharp…and funny.
The sheer physicality of the
production is amazing. Whether the four actors are processing claims – a mindless
routine set to pulsing music – or towing boats across the ice, they are, in the
process, presenting a graduate seminar in how important movement and control of
the body are to acting, but don’t get me wrong, this is not some
self-aggrandizing, thespian ego trip. No, the four (interestingly, no one is
listed as director, which says a lot about how this show was brought to life)
are intent on telling a story, or rather, two stories, and they succeed. When
the sailors, facing almost certain death, gather together and sing to buck up
their spirits, it’s a haunting moment; when Spivey, daunted by the task set for
him, has a dream about how he might improve office productivity, and in the
process give his charges a sense of purpose (a sequence accentuated by a
hand-held light), it’s a stunning piece of theater.
Anyone interested in creative
theater that engages the mind, the heart and the soul should not miss “Endurance,”
if for no other reason than to see what can be done with three desks and three
waste baskets. In an era often dominated by excess and over-production,
“Endurance” cleanses the theatrical palate and again makes us realize what four
talented actors are capable of creating…almost out of thin air.
“Endurance” runs through June 29.
For tickets or more information call 203-787-4282 or go to www.longwharf.org.
