Bare Theatre examines the nature of politics in The Leader and original one-acts
by Byron Woods @byronwoods
It's one of the basic rules of entertainment: Always leave 'em wanting more. But the charms that were present in The Leader, Bare Theatre's evening of mostly comic inquiries into the nature of leadership and politics, were blunted by the sheer bulk of the material presented.
After choreographer Heather Strickland's imaginative opening movement piece gave the phrase "the ascent of mankind" a literal bent, the titled play, an absurdist one-act by Eugene Ionesco, provided a pointed examination of crowd control by the media. As the announcer, Matthew Hager seemed all but physically elevated by the grandeur of a nameless head of state, simultaneously briefing the masses on his every movement ("The Leader is eating his soup!") while keeping their enthusiasms in check. Though Ionesco's motifs seem ham-handed some 60 years after the work's premiere, The Leader still effectively asks just how much we actually know about the ones who lead us, and about the agendas of those providing the information.
But the seven one-acts that followed—interspersed with 10 blackout sequences and four additional group movement pieces—needed a lot more editing by artistic director G. Todd Buker and choreographer Heather Strickland. The cleverness of Chuck Keith's Lemmings and Buker's Democratists' Dilemma contrasted with the belabored work in Two Rulers and uncredited, metaphorical sketches on mountain climbing and not swallowing everything one's being fed.
Hager and Matt Fields' take on competing vaudeville performers and Jeff Buckner's winsome mid-show solo deftly explored how crowds and individuals participate in their own manipulation. But overlong movement work in other places, including the finale, added little to points made earlier in the evening.
The result: about 90 minutes of truly interesting work, much of it original—in a show that unfortunately runs well over two hours at present.
This article appeared in print with the headline "Dirty old classics."
Related Locations
-
Common Ground Theatre
- 4815-B Hillsborough Rd, Durham Durham County NC
-
919-698-3870
- www.cgtheatre.com
- (based on 3 user reviews)
-
Visual Art Exchange
- 309 W Martin St, Raleigh Wake County NC 27601
-
919-828-7834
- www.visualartexchange.org
- Be the first to review this location!
- To create paragraphs in your comment, type <p> at the start of a paragraph and </p> at the end of each paragraph.
- To create bold text, type <b>bolded text</b> (please note the closing tag, </b>).
- To create italicized text, type <i>italicized text</i> (please note the closing tag, </i>).
- Proper web addresses will automatically become links.
Latest in Theater
-
The Justice Theater Project's stripped-down Ragtime
Through June 30
- Jun 19, 2013
-
Theatre in the Park's madcap thriller Fuddy Meers
Through June 30
- Jun 19, 2013
-
Observations on marriage and its discontents in Theatre Raleigh's I Do! I Do!
Two actors and one pianist purport to cover a half-century in a marriage in two hours.
- Jun 5, 2013
- More »
More by Byron Woods
-
Contrived horrors after fathers never come back home: Young Jean Lee's LEAR at Duke Theater Studies
It's tempting to call Young's LEAR a gleeful abomination.
- Apr 18, 2013
-
Two arms negotiators try to end the nightmare in Burning Coal's A Walk in the Woods
In this psychological two-person drama, long-term stressors slowly take their toll after a new American nuclear arms negotiator takes a seat across from his Soviet counterpart.
- May 15, 2013
- More »
