- OTHER MEDIA
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- SF Bay Guardian November 11, 2009 (Chris Jensen)
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- In 1948, the French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco set about
learning English. He didn't succeed. He did, however, manage to write an
intensely ridiculous version of the dialogues he found in English-language
primers ("This is my husband. We live in London. It is now three o'clock.").
The result was The Bald Soprano (La cantatrice chauve). In Cutting Ball's
new production, translated and directed by Rob Melrose, the play is as
revelatory as ever, in part because it's much funnier than you might remember.
That's very much to Melrose's credit, but he is helped tremendously by
Paige Rogers, who finds just the right pitch for her batty housewife. (She
manages to say things like "I don't know enough Spanish to understand
myself" with the deranged dignity of someone who puts great stock
in her own nonsense.) Crisply staged on a spare and handsome set, the play
doesn't offer much of a story, which is more or less the point: Each character
speaks without seeming to hear the others. Language conquers silence, but
fails to deliver meaning. The whole thing builds to a gorgeously choreographed
frenzy, with the actors shouting ragged bits of dialogue while throwing
themselves against a wall. It's glorious and weird, and you absolutely
shouldn't miss it.
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