‘Tidy’ Thrusts Renaissance Audiences into Strange New World

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Photo by Ross Zentner

Renaissance Theaterworks' 'Tidy'

Cassandra Bissell in Renaissance Theaterworks' 'Tidy'

Renaissance Theaterworks completes its 30th season with the world premiere of Tidy by Chicago-based playwright Kristin Idaszk. Renaissance, Milwaukee’s oldest, women-run theater company, opened the play last weekend in its new home on 255 S. Water Street.

Renaissance staffers have always emphasized that its plays (which aren’t always written by women) are intended for everyone. Their current show certainly fits this description. If anything, this bizarre commentary on life in the near future serves as an excellent springboard for post-show discussions about the popularity of self-help books such as Marie Kondos’ The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, or broader questions about what we are doing to this Earth, and when will it stop?

In the capable hands of Chicago director Elizabeth Margolius, both issues are presented simultaneously. The one-woman play revolves around a librarian and would-be mystery writer who confronts the piles of boxes surrounding her. In fact, that’s all the set contains—boxes, with stray objects anchoring them to the floor. There is no furniture, no tables lamps and no TV. Just boxes, consuming almost all of the living space (set by Jeff Kmiec).

At first, the woman identified in the script as The Detective (Cassandra Bissell) frets over how she is going to “clean up the mess” in time for a party being held at their apartment that evening. Her roommate/lover, Joy, is out somewhere. Bissell is a bit unnerved by this sudden disappearance, and her agitation continues to grow over the next 85 minutes. The play is presented without an intermission.

She tries to steady herself by announcing that “any minute now Joy will come walking in the door.” But she doesn’t.

So Bissell is faced with the daunting task alone. She remembers some lessons from reading the famed decluttering handbook. “If the item does not spark joy,” she recalls, “you should thank it before tossing it into the trash.”

Out go a number of items, such as a housewarming gift (an avocado peeler), clothes, books and other oddities. “Thank you, goodbye,” she tells each item destined for the trash. Interestingly, a few of the items look like the stuff one would find in a grandmother’s attic, such as an Underwood manual typewriter, a gramophone and a telephone that must date to the 1920s.

As she sorts through the debris, Bissell claims that she “didn’t always live like this.” She talks about how much life has changed recently. A former librarian, she worked until all the town libraries were suddenly closed.

Casually, she mentions that storms last for more than a month now, and she makes an unusual observation about why “clouds are beginning to die.”

She has further noticed that it is getting mighty quiet outside. There’s no sound of dogs barking or birds singing. These days, no cars are heard driving by their almost-empty apartment complex. She drifts into a memory from long ago, when she traveled to an area outside of the city at night. She thrilled at the large number of bats zooming around her while they looked for insects. Casually, she mentions that a fungus has killed all the bats.

An Increasingly Disturbing Scene

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Photo by Ross Zentner

Renaissance Theaterworks' 'Tidy'

Cassandra Bissell as The Detective in Renaissance Theaterworks' 'Tidy'

As Bissell works through the objects in her apartment, the scene becomes one not unlike an old episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

Her unseen roommate, Joy, is a geologist. She works long hours in a laboratory. Meanwhile, Bissell’s parents, who once ran a farm, have been relocated to something called a “climate center.” Bissell misses her parents, who never write her.

Bissell thinks back on her conversations with her roommate, who seems to be fascinated by the number of mass extinctions on Earth over the centuries. Bissell talks of dinosaurs and asteroids, and how severe climate changes in the past were able to decimate 99 percent of species on Earth.

Bissell, tall and blonde, with sharp features, always makes an impressive appearance onstage. She barely had time to wrap up the final shows of Next Act’s play, There Is a Happiness That Morning Is” before jumping into rehearsals for this show. Bissell’s credits include shows at a number of local theaters, including the Milwaukee Repertory Theater (My Name is Asher Lev). She has appeared at Madison’s Forward Theater Co., Cleveland Play House, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Chicago’s Steppenwolf.

Few actors are able to keep an audience rapt throughout an 85-minute show, but Bissell seems to do the job. She moves naturally about the stage, tossing off a joke or grimacing at a discovery among the countless boxes that surround her.

Tidy was first commissioned by another Midwest theater. It previously had a staged reading as part of Renaissance’s BRINK program for new works. Tidy is this theater’s contribution to World Premiere Wisconsin, a statewide festival celebrating new plays and musicals. The festival, presented by the Ten Chimneys Foundation, continues through June.

Despite its title, there’s no way that the show wraps up with a neat, tidy ending. It offers a provocative look at what’s ahead for the world, which offers an uncertain future for the people living in it.

Tidy continues through April 16 at 255 S. Water St. Masks are optional. For tickets, visit r-t-w.com.

or call 414-278-0765.