Chairs at the Alchemist

Ionesco's The Chairs was originally staged in 1952. Beckett's Endgame made its premiered half a decade later. Half a decade may separate the two plays, but the Theatre of the Absurd has them more or less occupying the same space. They both seem to be taking place at The End, existentially speaking. One gets the impression that the two are going on in different parts of the same building. It's kind of a fascinating feeling. I love watching this type of thing. I'd seen a few different productions of Endgame over the years. It's nice to finally catch a staging of The Chairs. 

The production currently being staged at the Alchemist Theatre has a vivid vacancy about it. It's an intimate little studio theatre  atmosphere, so there's a warmth to the vacancy Ionesco was writing about. One normally doesn't think of the end of the world as being particularly cozy, but the Alchemist's intimacy actually kind of works to the production's advantage. The world outside of the play is hinted at being more or less over. Here we have an elderly couple--a man and a woman discussing matters at what might as well be the end of the world. Directed by Leda Hoffmann, the Alchemist production has the feel of Kelly Doherty and Tim Linn playing an elderly couple who are quite huddled together in a tiny corner of the world that hasn't quite ended yet. There's an immediacy and an intimacy there. 

The Alchemist affords a few people the opportunity to sit in the front row and really experience the immediacy of that vacuum right on the edge of it. If you can get a seat there, I recommend it. Really amplifies the feeling of the play, but it's such an intimate venue that it doesn't matter where you sit. 

Kelly Doherty is a Milwaukee theatre treasure. She's only starting to get the kind of stage space she deserves. Here she's playing someone decades older than she is with poise and subtlety. Her comic instincts keep the role working even in slight movements and intonations. Here she's mother to her husband--eternally caring for him while at the same time wishing he had accomplished more in his lifetime. She wants quite a bit more than she's got here. She's playing a woman who is half the fantasy of the play. Her husband has written a very important piece and many people have been invited to come and see it. People start arriving, but they aren't actually there. And so husband and wife fantasize about the people who aren't there--acting as though they very much are. Her end of the fantasy becomes more than a little bit carnal and unwholesome, which is allows Doherty a fun added layer of characterization to play with. 

Tim Linn has been seen in and around the margins of various theatre Shakespearian productions in various locations. He's got a powerful voice for Shakespeare and a really dramatic stage presence. Here it's being bent around an old man who never quite met his potential. Much of the play is anticipation and much of the impact of the play requires a man in this role capable of delivering the potential of that anticipation. Linn's really good with that here. We get the feeling that he really has something to get across--that tonight just might be the night that he lives up to his potential. If you know anything about the play, you know what's going to happen, but Linn does a really good job of making something that was written half a century ago feel like it could change in some way on this night for this character and this play. Some of his presentation seems a little exaggerated, but that adds to the overall feel of things. It adds to the characterization as well . . . we get the impression that Linn's character is much younger than he is presenting himself as. Like Doherty's character, we get the feeling that he can be so much more than he is, but he's trapped beneath this presentation of being someone who finds his entire life behind him. 

We get the very real impression from Doherty and Linn that this man and this woman have gone through the motions of this evening countless times before. They're quite good at reacting to people who rent there. Perhaps they've experienced some variation on this same evening every night for the past 20 or 30 years. And yet its still new to them. Still somehow fresh regardless of how practiced they are in pretending this presentation…this willful hallucination between the two of them. It gives the ending the kind of impact it deserves. For his part, Dylan Bolin does a very clever job of delivering the punchline here. It's quite a sharp ending. 

On the surface, it can be easy to underestimate this play. There really isn't much going on here unless you're really thinking about it. And if you are . . . well . . . there's a lot going on. The big criticism of Theatre of the Absurd is that it's a reaction to theatre from a different time. It's an attempt to break out from theatrical conventions that have already been more or less annihilated. It's not shocking the way that it used to be. Be that as it may, the underlying themes here are as disturbing intellectually as they've ever been. And as everything fades out at the end of the hour, it still feels remarkably fresh. Regardless of how many times this nerve has been exposed through a production of The Chairs--it still feels like there's a shock there. It still feels kind of new. We've been through it before, but not like this. There's no curtain call here--only the end. Again. 

Alchemist Theatre's production of The Chairs runs through February 22nd at the Alchemist Theatre on 2569 South Kinnickinnic Avenue. For ticket reservations, visit the Alchemist online.