Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's The Lesson, L'Etage Cabaret, March 10

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Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's The Lesson, L'Etage Cabaret, March 10

POSTED: Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 9:54 PM

Filed Under: Arts Theater

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot."

That's the preamble to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, but the sentiment would seem to apply more aptly to the works of Eug'ne Ionesco, which are guided by precisely this sort of anti-literary (or in his case, anti-theatrical) ethos, and marked with the same sense of dry humor and ominous, inexplicable aggression. In her program note for the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's production of the absurdist master's The Lesson (1951), mounted in honor of his 100th birthday, director Tina Brock explains that his plays derive their meaning not through the conventional establishment of characters and situations, with coherent dialogue and psychology, but instead by the rhythmic accumulation of a "sheer overload of energy."

There's no question that The Lesson is illogical, and often nonsensical.' The central action concerns a professor (Tom Byrn) instructing his pupil (Kate Black-Regan) in basic arithmetic (a little curious, since she's a high school graduate on her way to earning a "total doctorate," but at least the math is correct) and comparative linguistics (in this case wholly invented and preposterous, concerning among other things the imperceptible distinctions between Spanish, Neo-Spanish, Sardinopolian and Oriental, but consistent within its own batty logic).' Oddly enough, though, the more eccentric aspects of the narrative end up feeling secondary to The Lesson's larger, lingering resonance.' The play's nonsense is comic, even whimsical, but the comedy is ultimately outpaced by tragic, disturbing overtones which stem not from absurdity but from a recognizable, albeit grossly warped and distorted, form of psychic realism.

As the lesson progresses, the pupil develops a (plausibly psychosomatic) toothache, which the professor ignores cruelly and pointedly ' watching Black-Regan contort her face in mounting agony, fluctuating between indignant protestation and resigned obedience in the face of Byrn's apoplectic, spittle-flecked determination to complete his lecture, was deliciously distressing.' That queasy tension, deriving though it does from an implausibly exaggerated set of circumstances, is nonetheless entirely psychological and empathetic.' Enhanced by the mysterious yet clearly ill-portending warnings ("philology leads to calamity!") of the professor's too-deferential maid (Jane Moore), the tension even functions to propel the plot, in an almost banal, linear fashion, as the play builds surely and steadily to a climax which I feel I should leave unspoken even though the concept of a "spoiler" would seem antithetical to the precepts of absurdism.

So shoot me, there is a plot.' There's a moral, too ' Ionesco was never above a bit of moralizing ' having something to do with abuses of power and the frivolousness of formal education, not to mention the futility of communication (with maniacs, anyway.)' As for motives, they're admittedly a good deal more oblique.' The inhuman senselessness of the characters' actions, if not their attitudes (which progress coherently enough from polite to pleased to frustrated to furious), is emphasized in this production by a hyper-intent, over-articulate, fever-pitched acting style.' That intensity is marvelously complemented by the visual outlandishness of Brian Strachan's phenomenal costumes (all in varying shades of green, with a fanciful overload of patterns and textures) and the actors' physical distinctiveness (Byrn's considerable stature; Black-Regan's wide round eyes and shocking-orange curls).

Although this exaggerated approach is conventional for absurdist theater, and these actors are certainly to be commended for their embodiment of what Brock describes as "unflagging ferocity," it would be interesting to see a production that allowed us to grasp more of the characters' tenuous humanity, rather than presenting them as fierce, fearsome, impenetrable fa'ades.' Not that it would make the play any less unsettling: On the contrary, by accentuating the text's latent semblance of realism, its deeper underlying absurdity might feel that much more sinister, and disturbingly relevant.

The Lesson runs for three more performances: Wed., March 11, Sun., March 15, Wed., March 18; 7:30 p.m., $18, L'Etage Cabaret, 6th and Bainbridge streets, reserve tickets at idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.com.

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