Review: Incorruptible by Paradox Players
by Michael Meigs
This cheery little satire might well have been titled Incorruptible - Men in Robes, marking a link to the comic style of the frankly inimitable Mel Brooks. As was always the case in Brooks' hysterical historical spoofs, the intent wasn't so much to portray the epoch as to emphasize that the seven deadly sins have always been with us -- particularly those of greed, envy and lust, the ones most likely to make us act in ridiculous ways.
Director Gary Payne gives us a quick orientation in the program, noting that in medieval times medicine was virtually non-existent and people sought miracles from the saints. Churches and religious orders zealously guarded bones believed to be relics of saints, and they required donations from pilgrims and peasants wishing to pray for saintly intercession.
Into this setting come a rogue and his maiden. Ariel Sauceda is Jack, the one-eyed itinerant performer and Megan Minto is Marie, the dainty miss with whom he's currently dallying. The abbot and his company, in search of some crowd-pleasing attractions, witness with dour patience the couple's attempts at entertainment and eventually discover that our Jack sold the nuns that set of bones that proved so popular. When Jack reveals that he simply dug the body up from the churchyard, one can almost hear the cling! of the cash register in Martin's head (too bad that such a sound effect would have been a 700-year anachronism). Our monks contemplate the resources available to them in their own sanctified ground and, inevitably, they find the justification for going into the bone-exporting business big time.
That's the basic joke of this show. The order co-opts our Jack with threats of denunciation and sets him up as the wholesaler; confined to the monastery in those scratchy robes and without easy access to Marie, Jack must exercise his wits.
Disguises, hide and seek, the blunders of the simple-minded brother Olf (Frank Rios), the guilty conscience of the young, lust-obsessed monk Felix (Matt Burnett), the threat and then the promise of a papal visit, the eruption onto the scene of the formidable Mother Agatha, the prioress possessing those miracle-working bones. . . . all these capers build upon one another. The graveyard stands empty and the impatient Martin orders Jack to go out and get a fresh body, anybody's body, to serve as the never-decaying corpse of an "incorruptible," the most holy of saints. And Marie happens to be hiding nearby, in a gunny-sack. . . .
Director Gary Payne keeps the action lively and broad. When under stress, our Jack tends to shout a bit too much -- after all, we have no trouble hearing him in the close quarters of Howson Hall at the Unitarian Universalist Church. The play is not in the least anti-Catholic, by the way, and just to prove it, after the knots in the plot are meticulously undone, the Holy Spirit delivers a miracle in the closing tableau.
Frank Rios as thick-headed Olf shuffles consistently, often with his eyes on some unseen far horizon. Matt Burnett, a master of youthful yearning and guileless expression, serves as the pure burnished foil to tarnished Jack. The three women of the piece get to rant or to pout, but by and large the show's about the guys.
You know -- the men in robes!
Review by webmaster, TheatreAustin, Yahoo groups, October 21
EXTRA
Click to view program for Incorruptible by the Paradox Players
Incorruptible
by Michael Hollinger
Paradox Players
