Review: The Green Bird by Adriana Montenegro
by Michael Meigs

Adriana Montenegro and friends have a good time presenting The Green Bird at the Cathedral of Junk at 4422 Lareina Street in South Austin.  If you like many others in Austin haven't visited Vince Hanneman's towering backyard construction of strangeness, this free show for Thursday through Saturday evenings would be an apt occasion to repair your shortcoming in Austin lore.

Artist/proprietor Hanneman has hosted theatre events before, including notably the annual theatrical comedy by the Weird Sisters Theatre Collective two years ago.  He had agreed to provide the venue for Kyle John Schmidt's Fernando and the Killer Queen in April last year but City of Austin engineers served notice that the place required reinforcement to make it safe for the public.  (If you visit, you'll understand that "repairs" wouldn't be the appropriate term for Hanneman's wildly eclectic three-story assemblage of everything from bicycle frames to gnomes to CDs to miscellaneous tchotchkes).  So get there with enough time before the 7 p.m. start to wander around and to absorb his only slightly deranged vision of post-industrial America.

You may wander past the actors in costume and you may get a jolt of surprise in the maze of construction and garden.  Two eerie figures will be sitting motionless in separate spots:  a grey-tinted female figure with a snipped-off funnel nose and alarmingly alert brown eyes, and a young woman swathed and grease-painted in stark white.  Those are Laura Burgess playing Calmon the intermittently oracular statue and Ashley McNerney as the garden statue Pompea with whom the young gallant will fall in love.  Their silent presence in the Cathedral and park pose for you the challenge of all silent, motionless mimes:  do you pretend that they are indeed inanimate and therefore ignore them?  Or do you acknowledge them, inspect them, perhaps speak to them?  No one I saw became so bold.

The Green Bird, written in 1765 by Italian satirist Carlo Gozzi, is not true commedia dell'arte.  Gozzi uses several of the stock figures from that tradition, including the canny innkeeper Truffaldino (Darren Scharf), his clever wife Smeraldina (Alex Casas),  and the insufferable old fool Pantalone (Roy Varney).  He takes the ages-old device of presenting handsome young persons ignorant of their own royal origins (Danielle Evon Ploeger and Mitch Harris), brought up by peasants (in this case, Truffaldino and Smeraldina).  Into that familiar mix Gozzi stirs a hefty dose of supernatural, with the statues that come to life, a singing apple (director Adriana Montenegro in an entirely silent role), dancing water and the enigmatic green bird (Matt Frazier).  The green bird has been sustaining the imprisoned former queen, Ninetta (Shannon McDermott), cast out 18 years ago and buried under the municipal toilets by Tartagliona (Eraina Porras), wicked mother of King Tartaglia (Andrew Butler).  Clueless king has only just returned from the wars, not too much the wiser.

 

Does that sound confusing?  Not to worry.  After swallowing a stiff dose of exposition from Truffaldino and Smeraldina in the first five minutes, you'll get along just fine.  And for additional amusement you can follow the machinations of court astrologer Brighella (Davina Clooney) as he schemes to woo the wicked queen and persuade her to benefit him in her will and testament.

Gozzi's blending of the commedia, supernatural elements and folk tales was applauded by his contemporaries, including Goethe, Schiller and Mme de Staël. Much more recently, Julie Taymore produced a version in New York in the mid-1990s that was much applauded for puppetry, special effects, costuming and magical acting.

Montenegro's version at the Cathedral of Junk won't win awards in those categories, for it has the cheerfully conspiratorial feeling of just what it is: a group of friends who've decided to put on a play at a really funky location.  The commedia dell'arte tradition requires a broad, emphatic acting style in which motion, gesture and voice all amuse while enlisting the sympathy of the audience. Best of the company in that aspect are Porras as the wicked queen, Burgess as the annoyed philosopher statue, and Casas as Smeraldina.  Scharf as Truffaldino credibly portrays the rascally aspects but doesn't achieve the sweep and emphasis of the others.

The green bird is played by Matt Frazier, whose presence and voice are notable, even though the title character has almost the smallest role of all -- as a sort of ave ex machina to resolve things for the finale.

There's no charge for admission and the company provides a big jug of ice-cold pink lemonade to refresh you at the intermission, freebies.  I wish I'd found a jar for donations at the lemonade stand.  At the gate on the way out Vince Hanneman has stationed a receptacle for contributions for the Cathedral, a worthy undertaking, but I'd have preferred for funds to go directly to the players.

EXTRA

Click to view the program for The Green Bird by Carlo Gozzi, produced by Adriana Montenegro

The Green Bird
by Carlo Gozzi
Adriana Montenegro