The Woyzeck Project – WOYZECK

Buchner’s story, at once primal and modern, tells of a young soldier who has fathered a baby  with the beautiful but unreliable Marie, his common-law wife. Desperate to earn extra money, Woyzeck subjects himself to an experimental program testing the mental and physical effects of a long-term diet consisting only of peas. The deprivation of that diet, combined with dehumanzing relationships at work, and most crucially, with Marie’s infidelity, drive him to murder.

Graney, who has taken a Brechtian approach to the play — adding powerhouse songs by composer  Kevin O’Donnell and a fascinating soundscape created by by Mikhail Fiksel and the actors — gives us a backdrop of army life and hazardous materials’ cleanup work. His Woyzeck  (the ideal Geoff Button, boyish yet intense) is matched by the easy allure and fire of Marie (Lindsey Gavel, a tall, stunning, luminous-faced redhead). And for his searing, hourlong  telling of the story, Graney also has tapped a terrific ensemble, with Ryan Bollettino as the  narcissistic Herr Doktor; Sean Patrick Fawcett as the puffed-up, morals-spouting Captain; Erin Barlow as Kathe, Marie’s “friend”; Walter Briggs as Marie’s handsome, fascistic lover;  Ryan Bourque as Woyzeck’s only friend, and Zeke Sulkes, ideally fey in several roles. Izumi Inaba’s deftly color-coded costumes are standouts in this real yet stylized staging that is not only a thrilling take on Buchner’s classic, but an example of Graney working at the top of his powers.

For her About Face production of “Pony,” director Bonnie Metzger also has gathered excellent actors who give their all to Oswald’s confusing look at an unsolved crime of passion and to the profound stresses that result from living any one of the many possible variations on non-heterosexual life. (A glossary of terms is included in the program.)

Set in a rural, Western town, “Pony” offers a Marie who in this case is bisexual (played by leggy, sexy Kristina Valada-Viars). She is being pursued by two people: Woyzeck’s equivalent, Pony (Kelli Simpkins), a lanky, cowboylike, unemployed “trans man” (a woman who identifies as a man), who subjects himself to psychological testing for pay at a clinic run by Cav (Janet Ulrich Brooks in old-school butch mode), and by Stell

The unseen crime of passion here remains fuzzily explained, at best. The rest of Oswald’s episodic play is primarily about sexual ambivalence of every sort , and the price of  hiding oneself. “Pony” is no “Woyzeck.”

Not surprisingly, Graney spotlights the comic aspects of Woyzeck’s plight—his fussily  condescending commanding officer, the pea-obsessed Herr Doktor. But it’s a feverish comedy,  as bits of ominous dialogue circulate repetitively around the stage and Woyzeck’s enormous  knife makes frequent appearances. The ferocious violence of the play’s climax turns out to have been perfectly prepared by the piece’s Kubrickian opening: The performers come on in hazmat suits, as though the play itself is radioactive. With its coda, in which the risen Marie (Gavel) congratulates us for watching a “beautiful murder,” this fiercely inventive take suggests it just might be a little toxic”.

It’s also as dark as can be. Based on a sensational crime of the period, Woyzeck follows the unraveling of a soldier who, driven crazy by poverty and powerlessness, kills the mother of his infant child. The piece is full of biting social satire—with blackly comic, over-the-top scenes of powerful assholes abusing the hapless antihero—and constitutes a blueprint for pretty much all of Bertolt Brecht, parts of Waiting for Godot, and Monty Python at its nastiest.

This spring, six Chicago theaters and an opera company have banded together to present the Woyzeck Project, a festival anchored by two shows running now at the Chopin Theatre: About Face Theatre’s premiere production of Pony by Sylvan Oswald, which tosses a few Büchnerian elements into a contemporary story about transgender identity, and Woyzeck itself, as adapted and directed by Sean Graney for the Hypocrites. In addition to sharing a venue and a starting point, the two productions employ the same set, sound, lighting, and prop designers.

The Hypocrites give us Büchner’s story straight up. Franz Woyzeck hardly ever sees his lover, Marie, because he’s constantly working humiliating side jobs to supplement his military pay. One, as a subject in a science experiment, may actually be designed to drive him nuts, and he’s starting to experience nightmarish hallucinations. Eventually Marie takes up with another guy. When Woyzeck catches on, he leads her out to the woods and kills her. Graney’s adaptation steals text from various parts of the original to cobble together a narrator of sorts—a knowing, sinister figure who appears to Woyzeck at times, tipping him off to Marie’s infidelity and giving him confirmation, with a raised eyebrow, of his doom.

Graney and his crack ensemble tease out the play’s humor, pathos, and terror. Scenes in which Woyzeck is tormented by his bosses, Captain Hauptmann and the mad scientist called Herr Doktor, are played broadly and expertly for laughs. But, in a remarkable choice, Geoff Button is allowed to project kindness and intelligence as Woyzeck. From his first scene, he comes across as a grounded, decent, sweet guy who just happens to be losing his marbles.

The production design is similarly bold. In a brilliant stroke by sound designer Mikhail Fiksel, the cacophony in Woyzeck’s head—buzzing insects, a wheezing baby’s cry, the beating of his own heart—is produced by the other actors, who become a kind of choral, oral Foley artist. And everyday objects develop into powerful symbols: An oblong rock, for instance, represents Woyzeck and Marie’s baby—until it becomes a weapon.

Graney’s most potent image is a simple can of peas. Herr Doktor’s experiment requires Woyzeck to eat nothing but peas for months, and throughout the play, even as he listens to Marie’s dying sobs, Franz keeps spooning them into his mouth. It doesn’t occur to him to break the habit of obedience.

About Face’s Pony is similarly accomplished, with outstanding performances throughout. But Oswald’s play ultimately disappoints. The eponymous character is a woman who blows into town passing as a man. Pony takes up with Marie, who—in the play’s closest connection to Woyzeck—is obsessed with a recent crime of passion in the woods: Another woman named Marie was stabbed to death there by a jealous lover. Oswald’s Marie says she wants to know, to experience, the murderer’s state of mind. Everyone in the piece has cards they play close to the vest, mostly having to do with gender. But Marie’s obsession remains a mystery until the end, and then it doesn’t add up. Her craziness comes across as a stock device.

There are plenty of other problems. Late in the action, Pony acquires an annoying tendency to state the play’s themes in essay-like monologues. Another character, a therapist, takes a turn towards violence that doesn’t seem in tune with the person we’ve known to that point. And Marie apparently turns completely sane in the play’s last moments.

It’s never just one thing that sends a person over the edge, but money troubles will turn any grim situation into something much worse. This aspect in particular is highlighted in The Hypocrites’ production of “Woyzeck” (✭✭1/2) at the Chopin Theatre, adapted and directed by Sean Graney, whose strange and entertaining sense of style (the tone borrows ever so vaguely from “A Clockwork Orange”), theatrical impishness and fascination with the dark side of the human soul can’t quite solve the production’s problems.

The world crushes the poor, humble soldier Woyzeck (Geoff Button, appropriately pathetic) — at the hands of his military betters, the doctor running a cruel medical experiment designed to drive Woyzeck to insane and his common-law wife (a wonderfully enigmatic Lindsey Gavel) who cheats on her man but has no qualms about accepting his money.

Not to get all Ayn Rand up in here, but Woyzeck, for my taste, is just too easy to disdain, something that has always colored my feelings toward the play. That said, it’s good how Graney emphasizes the transactional nature of Woyzeck’s relationships: Every time cash is exchanged, the characters smack the bills with the backs of their fingers. It is a small but chilling detail that resonates during these economic times. No matter what, Woyzeck is doomed by external forces, and perhaps Buchner’s point, clunky as it is, is that we ignore the pain and troubles of others at our own peril.

The story is of a poor soldier in a small, German town, living with a girl, whom bore  his child out of wedlock: marriage, after all, is expensive.  He saves money however  he can, performing menial jobs and taking part in medical experiments.  His health begins  failing, and the girl turns to another man.  In a jealous rage, he kills her.

That is the broad outline, but the details are sketchier: there are several drafts of  the play, with different endings, implications, and scene sequences.  So each production  of this play can be as unique as it likes, placing scenes where they will, choosing how  mad Woyzeck is and which ending they prefer.

It is also a piece that influenced the Expressionists, seventy-some years later; and this  detail is not lost on the Hypocrites, who have made Woyzeck a piece of Epic Theatre,  of Theatre of the Absurd, Theatre of Cruelty.  It is Bloc Theatre, exciting, odd, and gripping.   The actors never leave the stage, sitting on tree stumps when not taking part in the action,  creating sound effects, setting the ambience.  The audience is aware of the artifice of theatre,   of the play’s metatheatricality: certain words are linked to certain actions or other words spoken by those “off-stage.”  The destruction of realism creates a new dichotomy, with the theatre more  visceral and immediate, yet metaphorical and intellectualized.  And Hypocrites realizes this aim  very well.  And the lighting, set, costumes, as well as the rest of the production enhance this goal.

I say very little because there is too much to say.  This play is rich, its social commentary  compelling, its presentation fulfilling.  It deserves a treatise, rather than a review;  and since that is something I cannot give it – I would feel yet unqualified after ten viewings,  though I doubt the piece would get old even then – brevity seems to offend less.   But let me say: in a city where the Kitchen Sink drama reigns supreme, where realism  abounds and musicals thrive, this is refreshing, bold, and daring, and will leave you  gloriously shocked as only something that presents dark truths so immediately can”

Enter Sean Graney.

The Hypocrites artistic director has developed a knack for bold theatre and ranks  among the most exciting directors working in Chicago. Graney possesses the ability  to unearth the hearts of classic texts and translate them to contemporary audiences  by employing an arsenal of visceral elements. In this Woyzeck, he plays  maestro–soundscapes, a dumb show, and music by Kevin O’Donnell help forward the plot  and give body to heady expressionist ideas. His adaptation streamlines what Büchner left meandering. His rewrites, rearrangements, and omissions are always with clear

The title tragic hero, played by Geoff Button, is given the full Job treatment from  his country, his colleagues and his wife. Subjected to inhumane medical experiments,  degrading work conditions and an ungrateful spendthrift spouse, Woyzeck descends into desperation. His misery is amplified by the production’s wry, cruelly detached  sense of humor–his child is literally presented as dead weight: a rock.

Visually, it’s captivating. Tom Burch’s set design juxtaposes nature with biohazard  plastics in a vast and functional playing space. Dangerous elements get the richest,  most appealing colors–appropriate for a show whose characters find beauty in destruction.

The Hyprocrites allow us to pity the tormented protagonist while alienating us  just enough to objectively consider the morality of his and our resentment toward his  adulteress wife (Lindsey Gavel). Added repetition in dialogue and gestures conveys  the soldier’s ability to endure anguish for the people he loves, and suggests a breaking  point may be the only solution for escaping the hellish loop of giving-without-return;  suggests, but doesn’t dictate. The specific tragic end Graney chooses for his doomed young man leaves some questions open-ended. Unlike in Büchner’s text, they’re the right kind.

The festival is anchored by About Face’s production of Pony and The Hypocrites’ world premier adaptation of Woyzeck. I caught both of them in a double feature of sorts last Sunday at Chopin Theater.

Woyzeck, Pony, and the Working-Class Tragedy – www.gapersblock.com.  

“About Face Theater and The Hypocrites began their “Woyzeck Project” this month, a city-wide festival celebrating the classic proletariat tale, Woyzeck– an avant-garde working-class tragedy, left unfinished by Georg Büchner upon his death in 1837.

The festival is anchored by About Face’s production of Pony and The Hypocrites’ world premier adaptation of Woyzeck. I caught both of them in a double feature of sorts last Sunday at Chopin Theater.”

The first thing you will notice about Woyzeck, as with most plays, is the set. And this is a gorgeous set by Tom Burch. It is minimal in the sense that you can tell you’re outside, in the woods somewhere, but there are not trees and moss–not much, anyway. There is, however, a white deer, a collection of tree stumps, two cabinets and a brook/river–running with real water. The play opens gradually with a man in a hazmat suit and a respirator mopping up the stage around another figure, also in a hazmat suit, who is presumably dead. Behind a translucent sheet at the back of the stage, we see five more figures, also wearing respirators, but with no hazmat suits–only long underwear and combat boots. As the play begins, the figures quickly change costumes onstage while aggressively singing a powerful opening number. At this point it should be mentioned that this is, in a sense, a musical–in that there is singing. But make no mistake, this is not a musical in an traditional sense (or anything else in any traditional sense, for that matter).

The second major thing you will probably notice about Woyzeck is that the language is fragmented, to say the least–as if it were translated directly and literally from German, with all the awkward sentence structure that comes with that. The language is incredibly playful and poetic, too. Much like Shakespeare. And much like Shakespeare, you likely won’t understand every single sentence that hastily spills out, but you’ll get the gist of what’s going on.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about The Hypocrite’s Woyzeck is that every actor is onstage at all times, and if they’re not actively participating in dialogue at the center of the stage, they’re sitting off to the side making naturey sounds–coos, clicks, hums, whistles, etc. Key words from conversations are occasionally echoed by the “peanut gallery”, as well. The effect of this is both eerie and stimulating–suggesting a sense of collective consciousness, a “we are all one” sort of vibe. And/or (depending on your state of mind) a glimpse into the mind of a maniac with some sort of multiple personality issues.

Woyzeck is a classic tale of a love triangle, complete with a classic murder/suicide ending, but the execution is anything but classic. It is disconcertingly, brutally violent and epic and deliciously avant-garde. It is quite obviously the work of Sean Graney, and is possibly his best/darkest/weirdest production to date. Graney and The Hypocrites are an invaluable staple in Chicago’s experimental theater scene, now more than ever. If you only see one play in The Woyzeck Project, see this one.

Pony

From the moment I saw this play last Sunday up until now, I have been trying to figure out how Pony (written by Sylvan Oswald and directed by About Face Artistic Director, Bonnie Metzgar) is related to Woyzeck and why they’re being shown in tandem. There are few similarities other than their using (pretty much) the same set–except a lot of the cool stuff from Woyzeck’s set, like the deer, was taken off and replaced by far less interesting objects–and the “Marie” character in each play is in the midst of some sort of poly-amorous drama.

The Marie in Pony is a waitress who is obsessed with a murder that took place in the woods (the murder that ends Woyzeck), and she gets off on imagining herself as the characters of that murder–both murderer and murderee. So there’s that. But that aspect of Pony doesn’t really seem to mesh with the rest of the plot, and, frankly, adds a cheese factor to this play. Why is this crazy chick running around the woods with a broken mirror, screaming into it and constantly having some sort of panic attack? Rather than harp on the connection between Pony and Woyzeck any further, I will just consider Pony as an autonomous piece, addressing problems related to sexuality and identity.

It works better that way, but it still doesn’t work. Sure, it’s great that transgender issues are beginning to be addressed comprehensively via the arts (and the media, for that matter), but Pony is grouchy, too fragmented and asks a whole lot of questions without offering any real answers. And not in a thought-provoking, art-imitates-life kind of way. In a frustrating way. How did these characters get where they are now, and where are they going? What is our trans protagonist, Pony, running from exactly? What does he want? What the hell is Marie’s problem? Why is everyone so damn mean to each other?