There are fundamentally two kinds of clown shows: the family-friendly romps featuring childlike buffoonery ( e.g., chase-and-tag games ) , and the darker Guignol satires, peopled by grotesque caricatures engaging in sinister, often violent, activities. In attempting to meld Robert Louis Stevenson's Victorian horror tale with masked commedia dell'arte, the Bricklayers ensemble walks an uneven line between the dissimilar stylistic motifs.
The production currently playing at the Bailiwick Arts Center ( soon to be renamed by new owners, Theater Wit ) originated with Annibal et ses Elephants, a French troupe whose artistic director, Frederic Fort, authored the adaptation later translated into English by Bricklayer Kyle Cadotte. The story recounts the familiar tale of the virtuous Dr. Jekyll, whose experiments in human psychology lead to a split in his personality, releasing his alter ego, the loathsome Mr. Hyde.
Medical scenarios are standard repertoire in the clown's catalogue, but we are presented with no hack-and-slash stage business here, no confetti exsanguinations or ribbon-streamer dismemberments. The doctor's agony at his transformation is conveyed by moans and cries from his locked laboratory, while his worser half is muffled in a cowled cloak that conceals his terrifying visage, the repugnance he inspires suggested by his eerily-serpentine walking stick. Mr. Utterson, Jekyll's attorney and confidant - who also acts as our narrator-breaks a promise made to a street beggar ( with harrowing results ) , but otherwise mocks his profession with transgressions not nearly so offensive as a shrill-voiced servant's habit of sneezing into the tea tray.
So while children are unlikely be traumatized by this interpretation - indeed, will probably delight in the false noses and exaggerated maquillages of the principal characters - audiences unaccustomed to the conventions of its genre may take awhile to acclimate to the actors' propensity for delivering all their speeches full-front, a holdover from its roots in Medieval street-fair spectacle. But under Patrick Goulding's direction, the five performers sprint through their nine roles with alacrity and agility (in particular Tabitha Noble as Jekyll's shrewish mother ) . Oh, and did I mention the songs?
December is the month for huge glittery big-ticket holiday extravaganzas, but a 55-minute indoor frolic charging no admission save the donations of its patrons offers playgoers a welcome break from all the fa-la-la. Or you can make a Saturday double-header of it, along with The Christmas Schooner, playing in the same building.
