Mark Anderson Returns to Form with ‘Thanks A Lot!’

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Photo courtesy Theatre Gigante

Mark Anderson - Thanks A Lot

Mark Anderson - Thanks A Lot

Mark Anderson, artistic co-director of Theatre Gigante, Milwaukee’s ever-adventurous, interdisciplinary performance company, started his career 40 years ago as a solo performance artist. He traveled this country and several others presenting his gently comic stories, observations and reflections in carefully structured one-man shows.

For his return to live performance after the pandemic shutdown he’s come back to that form with an all-new work, an evening-length entertainment timed for Thanksgiving and titled Thanks A Lot! Since his material draws on his experiences during the past year and half, the title can be taken several ways.

Isabelle Kralj, artistic co-director of the company and Anderson’s wife, co-edited and co-structured the copious material Anderson wrote during lockdown. She’s also the show’s director, and in a first for Anderson’s monologue art, she’s bringing another one-man-showman onto the stage with him: the ever-adventurous composer and musician Frank Paul, the couple’s longtime musical collaborator. While Anderson’s spoken text is dominant, Paul’s original music provides a second emotive, comic voice, often on the same subjects.

Letting in the Light

“So there’s three facets to the show,” Anderson says. “There’s Frank and his stuff, there’s me and my stuff, and there’s Isabelle and her directing-connecting vision.”

I ask the couple what audiences should expect.

“It’s all those things we’ve lived through for the past year and a half, and how I’ve notated them, attempting to make points but also letting some lightness in,” Anderson begins. “Some sections are stories. For example, once things started to lift and we could go back out into the world a bit more, we went up to stay with friends at a house on a lake. I talk about being there, just looking at the world, and being in nature.”

He’ll hold up a book he brought to read at the lake house, a collection of the four great plays of Anton Chekov, the groundbreaking Russian playwright and storyteller from the start of the 20th century. “I’ll explain who Chekhov is and what kind of stories he tells,” Anderson continues.

Kralj takes up the story: “He talks about how Chekhov’s society was reforming, and he relates that to what’s going on now—except that Russian society was heading toward the bourgeoisie losing out, and we’re heading toward the rich continually getting richer. And he talks about how to deal with some of the things we’re coping with in a divided America, but all in a subtle, gentle way.”

Anderson: “Another thing I did during the pandemic was look through a box of letters my father wrote to his parents when he was a soldier in World War II, a 19 year old kid writing letters back from France, Germany, and Austria. It was really moving to read the letters. I talk about that and about my response.”

Kralj: “The show, I think, also points at the continuity of life. No matter how dire things are or how we feel about the situation we’re in, life continues. It points to things going from one generation to another, or to thousands of years of generations. And so that’s kind of hopeful.”

Anderson: “I want us to try to identify our understanding of things, and maybe identify new insights. There are times, because of the pandemic and the way people have been behaving badly, and because of politics, that I’m very pointed.”

Kralj: “You’re not afraid to take a side and make a statement.”

Performances are Nov. 19-21 at the Kenilworth 508 Theatre, on the 5^th floor of 1925 E. Kenilworth Place. Tickets are available online and at the door. Seating is limited. For details and safety precautions, visit theatregigante.org. The show will also be available virtually starting Nov. 19.