Boulevard Theatre ‘Cecile’ banner
Jean Anouilh was one of France’s most vital playwrights of the last century, but word never reached Milwaukee where his work was seldom performed. Boulevard Theatre will correct the omission with its upcoming musical concert staging of Anouilh’s Cecile, Or the School for Fathers.
It will be the 1954 play’s Midwest premiere, according to Boulevard’s founder and artistic director, Mark Bucher. And even if he’s wrong about that, it almost certainly has never been presented with sung interludes—songs popularized by Edith Piaf and others. “All of them have French words,” Bucher insists.
The irrepressible Bucher slid over to the passenger seat for the final production of Boulevard’s 38th season, handing the director’s wheel to David Flores. Familiar to anyone aware of Milwaukee performing arts, Flores is an actor-director-playwright with a resume that encompasses First Stage, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Renaissance Theaterworks, Skylight Music Theatre, the Florentine Opera, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Wild Space Dance Co. and more. “Someone else should be in the kitchen once in a while to make Thanksgiving dinner,” says Bucher, explaining why he’s not directing Cecile.
Anouilh was a writer who understood how to present provocative ideas to popular audiences. He was an absurdist and a satirist whose recurring theme was the quest for integrity, frustrating by society and the flaws in his own characters. Cecile is decidedly one of his lighter works.
“It’s set in the 1700s and the characters are right out of Moliere with saucy maids and young lovers and crabby old men,” Bucher says. The compact cast of the “frothy folly,” as Bucher calls Cecile, includes Milwaukee’s Caitlin Kujawski Compton, Sarah Donofrio, A.J. Magoon, Michael Pocaro, and Matt Specht. They will be accompanied during the songs by the staging’s music director, pianist-accordionist Donna Kummer. The cast will perform in the round.
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Bucher says he’s been carrying Cecile in his head for the past 20 years. Now is the time for staging Anouilh’s seldom seen comedy. “It’s a perfect tonic for the gray month of March. Confusion will reign, hilarity will ensue and all ends happily.”
Boulevard Theatre’s Cecile, Or the School for Fathers will be performed 4:30 p.m. March 10 and 17 and 7:30 p.m. March 11 and 18 in the reception hall at Plymouth Church, 2717 E. Hampshire St. Boulevard will continue its policy of pay-what-you-can at the door.
