Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano begins with a Mr. and Mrs. Smith sitting in their comfortably decorated London home, a couple that appears as plain and unassuming as their living room decor. They are your typical middle-aged couple that invites their typical middle-aged friends, the Martins, over for dinner. Everything appears normal except for the slightly jilted dialogue; the Smiths are speaking a little too loudly, their pauses are a little too long, and their logic is more than a little unsound. Although slightly unsettled, the audience can take these irregularities in stride until the Martins arrive onstage and everyone is hurled headlong into the Theater of the Absurd.

Recounting the empty exchange between the couples here would be as pointless as it was to sit through in the theater; the characters’ movements are as restless as their speech. The four actors are constantly agitated, switching between the two chairs and sofa arranged on stage. Eventually, the fire chief arrives at the house unannounced and regales his audience with fables from which, as you can guess, there is no message or moral to be derived. Upon leaving, he declares at random, “the bald soprano!” at which point dialogue rapidly deteriorates into a string of non-sequitors and the entirety of the production collapses into a manic confusion of unrelated words and behavior.

The play is, in a word, absurd. In two words, obstinately pointless. When asked about its ultimate purpose, Director Robert Duffley (COL’ 13) replied, “Meaning in The Bald Soprano is like black ice—it tends to slip away from you.” The Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco had apparently drawn inspiration from the simple language manuals he used to learn English. Through his exercises of memorization and repetition, the canned English phrases and stiff dialogue struck Ionesco as increasingly absurd. One can speculate, therefore, that the play serves as a commentary on the cheapness of contemporary conversation.

Producer Natalie Gallagher (COL’ 13) believes that the play ultimately communicates the “futility of language.” In a literal interpretation of the banality of banter, Ionesco has written a script in which words are exchanged and yet nothing is said. This posed a particular challenge to the actors tasked with the memorization of meaningless lines spoken at random. Arianne Price (SFS’ 15), who played Mrs. Smith, said that improvisation was crucial to the process.

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As the Hilltop enjoys the transition from winter to spring, Will Eno’s The Flu Season arrives in the Walsh Black Box at a fitting time. Nomadic Theatre’s Robert Duffley (COL ’13) directs The Flu Season, with Diane Giangreco (COL ’13) producing. Having opened last night, the production runs through Saturday in Walsh.

The play opens with the disconcerting proposition that it does not have to happen, and closes with the assertion that it did not. The Flu Season revolves around the construction and deconstruction of writing, the scenes with both the human manifestation of Prologue, played by Allie Villarreal (COL ’12), and Epilogue, played by Amelia Powell (COL ’12). The two serve as commentators for a story that plays out in a “hospital of sorts,” with Villarreal preparing the audience with her fierce yet gullible meanderings, and Powell often repeating her opposite’s lines with a sincere sense of what is to come.

The play’s fixation on dualities is emphasized by the mechanics of the stage, which is split in half for the majority of the action. The “hospital of sorts,” is occupied by a cast of crazies. Danny Sullivan (MSB ’14), delicately interprets his character, Man, to be manic, and Woman, played by Lily Kaiser (COL ’12), suggests a deep sense of depression. Both successfully present themselves with a heavy dose of confusion, a magnified reflection of the intricate web that is playwriting.

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This evening, A Night of One-Act Plays opens on the Devine Studio Theatre stage in the Davis Performing Arts Center. Running tonight through Sunday, and again next week from Wednesday until Saturday, the show features four one-act plays that examine the art within human interactions. In her laudatory review, the Voice‘s Heather Regen said the plays “combine to provide the audience with a wonderful range of theatre.” Tickets can be purchased here ($10 for students, $12 for others).

Photos: Lucia He