Usher Nonsense #50 – Guinea Pig Solo
GUINEA PIG SOLO - By Brett C. Leonard; directed by Ian Belton
WITH: Kim Director, Alexander Flores, Robert Glaudini, Stephen Adly Guirgis,
Jason Manuel Olazábal, John Ortiz, Richard Petrocelli, Portia and Judy Reyes.
Sets by Andromache Chalfant; costumes by Kaye Voyce; lighting by Paul Whitaker;
sound by Fitz Patton. Presented by the LAByrinth Theater Company, in
collaboration with the Public Theater. At the Shiva Theater in the Public Theater,
425 Lafayette Street, East Village.
This is a theatre company that means business. Crammed into an impossibly small theatre
they perch you up in bleachers so you are just a little uncomfortable and a little askew.
Then they tell you a tale that is more than both of those things.
Guinea Pig is a retelling of the German work "Woyzeck" by Georg Büchner. A soldier,
José Solo, comes home full of the trauma of war and ill equipped to be husband, father or
just an all around good guy. In this production, Solo is treated with a regimin of sleep
deprivation stage right and his estranged wife and son come slowly unraveled stage left.
What is intriguing about this production is the timing and precision of the piece and these
performers. There are great stretches of silence, monologues that take off out of the
building and people who bang into each other's lives without care.
The production is a powerful piece. A little lumpy and unkempt here and there - we didn't
know until the end that Solo's war was the FIRST Gulf War, and that the Bush he
complains about is Papa Bush. As well, his therapy is unclear and we have to spend time
sorting out what is happening. On the other hand, the life of his wife and son is laid out
slowly and deliberately like a mosaic being assembled and we are guided surely down the
sad path.
The audience left the theatre talking to one another. Some were discussing the plot, some
were amazed that they had never heard of this company before, and some were talking
about the shameful war we brought to Iraq.
This is a theatre company to follow.
© 2004 by Tulis McCall
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |