present		  
INFO

'Leonce and Lena' highly inventive and a royal treat

By Michael Phillips
Tribune theater critic
 online review here

A punk masterpiece of effrontery, "Leonce and Lena" didn't sprint across a stage until 1895, 59 years after Georg Buchner wrote the comedy for a writing competition (he missed the deadline) while teaching a Zurich university seminar on the anatomy of fish. He preferred to lecture on philosophy, but that's how things worked out in 1836 for young Buchner. He died of typhus the following year at age 23.

A comic picaresque bookended by Buchner's more severe surviving dramas, "Danton's Death" and "Woyzeck," "Leonce and Lena" is revered for its satiric craziness in Europe. The title exists more in textbooks than on stages in America. Yet in the best way, you wouldn't know that from director Sean Graney's antic, wonderfully inventive production for The Hypocrites, of which Graney is artistic director, now at the Athenaeum.

The text exists in a realm of fairy-tale absurdism, wild for its time and highly malleable in ours. Leonce is the prince of the kingdom of Peep, a dunderhead and layabout destined for the crown and, thanks to an arranged marriage, a lifetime with Lena, the princess of Pup.

Accompanied by the coarse realist Valerio, Leonce flees his obligations and hits the open road in search of meaning. At the end of a twisty trail, he finds none other than Lena, whom he has not met, and her snarky governess. By the climax, "Leonce and Lena" has wigged out completely, at once spoofing and satisfying the generic commedia dell'arte conventions of young lovers in a comedy. "The only thing missing is that tiny little phrase 'I do,' Valerio says.

The production is full of excellent cheap shtick. The cast is young and exceptionally promising. Ryan Bollettino's Leonce is a delicate sort of idiot, sweet and brash. At one point, a police officer on the lookout for the runaway prince holds up a "wanted" poster featuring Bollettino's mugging face and startled eyebrows. It's held up two inches away from Bollettino doing the exact same expression.

Rendel Leatherman's Lena has a plaintive, relaxed quality, which works as a great buoy for this artfully piloted boatload of nonsense. Jennifer Santanello's governess perches right on the edge of hysteria, and unlike many performers, she knows how to make hysteria funny. So does Gregory Hardigan, who as Valerio turns his character's quest for the perfect roast beef into a life's mission.

The later scenes — mostly to do with bumbling or venal courtiers — grind on a bit. Yet this "Leonce and Lena" lands on a surprisingly heartfelt image of young lovers, together because they want to be, not because they have to be. A lesser staging would've kept the whole thing on a caricatured cloud, high above the realm of recognizable human befuddlement.

The gleefully low-rent pageantry includes songs and dances accompanied throughout by Death, played by an onstage musician (Kevin O'Donnell) on kettle drum and all sorts of other things. Adapting Evan Garfinkel's version of the play, Graney realizes the devil is in the details, not simply in "going for it." If I had a nickel for every commedia-inflected production that went for it and ended up exhausting the audience by the fourth aside, well, I'd have several hundred rolls of nickels.
 
Leonce and Lena  
online article here
Preceding each act of The Hypocrites production of "Leonce und Lena," the entire cast comes barreling out--in droopy Elizabethan collars and black-and-orange-striped hose--singing a German ditty, as if the whole thing were a dancehall musical. And then petite Kate McLean, as Servant #1, holds up a megaphone and barks in a German accent: "Get off!" Or maybe she’s saying: "Good! Off!" Either way, it’s extremely funny--European commedia by way of Frau Farbissina from "Austin Powers." (At intermission, McLean brusquely instructs: "Pee und smoke und vash your hands." Yes, ma'am!)

Director Sean Graney, experimental but entirely accessible, has found a way to combine a centuries-old performance style with a whole slew of pop-culture references, and the result is hugely entertaining. Georg Büchner’s 1836 comedic fairytale centers on the prearranged marriage between Prince Leonce and Princess Lena, who reside in separate kingdoms. Unbeknownst to one another, they both rebel and escape into the woods where they meet for the first time and, ironically, fall in love. Working with a translation from the German by Evan Garfinkle, Graney has added his own colloquial quirks (somehow, the Kenny Rogers-Dolly Parton hit, "Islands in the Stream," gets mentioned) and surprisingly, it doesn’t feel forced.

Straight-up commedia is hard enough to pull off, let alone Graney’s referential version, but the large ensemble has it nailed, doling out the silliness with dead-perfect timing. (Though Büchner’s gallows humor about starving peasants feels somewhat muted here.) Otherwise, everything seems fall into all the right places, from composer Kevin O’Donnell’s kettledrum that he manipulates to punctuate each gesture and punch line with a resounding thump, to Alison Siple’s commedia-esque costumes and hipster shoes, to Graney’s minimalist set design with a playground slide each character uses to make his or her entrance.

- Nina Metz, NEWCITY

 

FRACTURED FAIRYTALE
Leonce und Lena

Reviewed by Web Behrens
Contributing writer

Radically ahead of his time, playwright Georg Büchner never lived to see any of his works performed before his untimely death at age 23. So it seems perfectly right for the Hypocrites' to produce an enthusiastically 21st-century version of his absurdist 19th-century play, "Leonce und Lena."

The show begins with a bang-plenty of them, thanks to Kevin O'Donnell's percussive introduction. Happily he lingers onstage throughout, punctuating the proceedings with an occasional drumming or announcing another cast member's entrance with a slide whistle. His joyful noisemaking is an early indicator of the show's fractured fairytale nature.

In this crazy clown-white-faced reality, the continually coddled Prince Leonce refuses, sight unseen, his betrothed bride, Princess Lena. But when the two young royals, abetted by their respective loyal servants, both happen to flee their destiny for the safety of the forest-well, you can imagine what happens next. Büchner makes a powerful point about the importance of personal choice versus societally imposed fate, even if the end results might be the same.

Director Sean Graney wears many hats here, adapting Büchner's script from an Evan Garfinkel translation and also imagining the set. (Hooray for that playground slide!) He's also assembled a team of designers whose artistic contributions amplify his vision-Chris Wooten on lights, Joseph Fosco on sound and Alison Siple with her zany costumes (down to the striped stockings and fashionable footwear). All elements clash joyfully together onstage in periodic, ebullient dance processionals, when the entire cast of 13 circle and strike poses.

The ensemble members throw themselves into the over-the-top performative style. For example, as the sadistic schoolmaster, Ryan Palmer delivers a delightful vocal performance, varying his tone and volume with sudden swoops. And Gregory Hardigan, in the key role of the gadabout Valerio, has honed the audience aside into an exaggerated art. Toss in the some amusing German accents ("Vosh your hands," the audience is sternly charged at intermission), balance it all with the sweetness of Ryan Bollettino and Rendel Leatherman's lovers, and cap the whole shebang with a wedding even queerer than the ones in Massachusetts and you've got two hours of on-the-nose absurdist fun.
 

 PHOTOS
TICKETS CAST/CREW
MAP REVIEWS
DRAMATURG  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Photos by Margaret Lakin, Artwork by Roz Francis