Review: re:Psyche by Secondhand Theatre
by Michael Meigs

Secondhand Theatre's re:Psyche, playing at the Blue Theatre until July 18, reminds me of a Swiss circus. 

In late spring and summer, medium-sized towns and villages in the Swiss mountains awaken to find a weathered Little Top has appeared on a vacant municipal lot, surrounded by a miscellany of campers and caravans.  The troupe rarely numbers more than ten performers, perhaps with three or four musicians.  Practised professionals,  they are initiates in make-believe, gymnastics and glitter.  They stay for a week or ten days, then fold their tent and disappear.

The seven actors in re:Psyche have the same mysterious resilience and commitment.   Five of the actors and three of the tech staff established ties in UT's MFA programs for theatre arts, where  re:Psyche began as "an experiment in movement-based ensemble-created work."  Jenny Connell's script with chracters from the legend of Psyche, that mortal woman who involuntarily enchanted Eros (Cupid), became an offering at the Mark Cohen New Play Festival in 2009, voted "Best of Fest."  UT sponsored an additional  staging in 2009, much appreciated. 

Now, with further reworking, cast changes and the addition of eerie, effective music by Austin string minimalists Mother Falcon, the troupe has set up its metaphorical tent as Secondhand Theatre, at the Blue Theatre building, that odd patch behind the Goodwill warehouse at 916 Springdale Road. 

I suggest that you get over there and take it in before the group disperses.  These folks are serious, comic, and seriously entertaining.

This is no flimsy costumed re-telling of the familiar.  Re:Psyche is a muscular, intelligent exploration of a myth about beauty, power, attraction, transformation and death.

Tall, curly-haired Eros is sure of his attractiveness and considers himself the god of love.  His mother Aphrodite, glamorous but cynical and maybe a bit haggard, infuriates him by addressing him as "Cupid" and correcting him repeatedly:  "You're the god of desire."

The program foreword asks, ". . . in a world bereft of the essence of mythology, how do we know love?"

The story is far richer than suggested by that simple outline.  Over the two years they have lived with these characters, the actors and in some cases their predecessors have made them whole and believable, giving them vivid, often unexpected traits.  Transformations occur.  Actors move through multiple characters and back again; sexes are enigmatic (including a bravado performance by Rudy Ramirez, whom I've never seen before).  Smaranda Ciceu as the ditzy goddess of transformation Circe morphs into the tormented Eros for a dialogue with Psyche, where recriminations tangle the search for reconciliation. 

Throughout this exploration the cast moves with the assurance of theatrical athletes of mind and body.  Each is memorable -- several of them not only for this piece, but also for the taut play against other sharply realized roles they've performed over the past two years.  For example, Tom Truss played Oberon in Midsummer Night's Dream, Dostoyevski's pure soul Prince Myshkin in The Idiot, long-suffering father Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, the stage manager in Our Town, a raucous carney girl in a FronteraFest solo, and the unreflective suitor and husband in Machinal. . . will our last view of him in Austin be this turn as the vindictive, bejeweled goddess-mom in a brilliant, low-cut gown?  This is the equivalent of a high-wire act, a character of contemptuous virtuosity, a lush beauty thousands of years old forever jealous and determined to destroy her rivals.

Harrison Butler was foolish rich boy Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice.  Here he trades on his height and good looks in quite  a different way -- schmoozing the audience ahead of time ("Hello, could you hold this shirt for me?  Don't wrinkle it!") and portraying for us the Golden Boy the rest of us love to hate: smooth, well-spoken, duplicitous and (dare we add?) narcississtic.  He suggests the uncomprehending male force, entangled and yet uncommitted.  Eros (Cupid) has the last word in this retelling of the myth for the Google age, and it's not a pretty pronouncement.

And, of course, Verity Branco.  She is, once again, the Beautiful One -- just as in Austin Shakespeare's An Ideal Husband where she was the spider woman Mrs. Cheverley and as in The Trojan Women where she was a Jessica Rabbit version of Helen of Troy.  But here, with a difference, for she is condemned by beauty.  Those piercing eyes and high cheekbones are worth damned little when you're a toy of fate and a toy of the gods.  Branco's concentration and acting ability overcome her striking looks, gradually battered down by trials and betrayals.  In the closing scene, suspended and annihilated by the force of pure beauty, she is the figure in a danse macabre, with the lovely shape of her bones absorbing her flesh.  It's creepy.  It's beautiful.  But it's creepy, and it underscores the devastating remark in that scene, "Love is what's left when beauty burns away."

LaTasha Stephens is a Wii-playing airheaded Zephyr, a fine comic turn, as well as an oracle to be feared.  Jon Cook plays lightweight, including his role as a silly announcer of scenes, and then surprises us at the finale in a role turn directly connected to the dilemma of the dénouement.

When will these seven meet again?  Probably not at all.  That great big theatre machine at UT will be churning out some replacements.  But go.  See them.  Celebrate their versatility and their talent.  You won't regret it.

Review by Avimaan Syam for the Austin Chronicle, July 1

Review by Ryan E. Johnson at austinist.com, July 2

Strongly positive review by Bastion Carboni, July 8

Review by webmaster, TheatreAustin, Yahoo groups, July 22

 EXTRAS

Robert Faires' 2000-word feature in the Austin Chronicle on the origins, ensemble work and prospects for Re-Psyche, with interviews of director Marie Brown and actor Tom Truss,June 24

 Lisa Scheps of KOOP-FM on her June 21 program "Off Stage and On the Air": "First up were folks from Re:Pysche playing at the Blue Theatre now through July 18th. Who was there? I'll tell you... we had two cast members, Rudy Ramirez and Verity Branco; we had the director, Marie Brown; we had the producer and co-creator, Tom Truss; and we were also joined by the Stage Manager (my old job), Michael Mussey (who did an awsome job playing the track and not being able to hear!!) They did a scene from the show that was Hill-Air-Re-Us!!!"

Secondhand Theatre promo, including a visit to KOOP-FM

Click to view program for re:Psyche by Secondhand Theatre at the Blue Theatre

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