Quasimondo Red, White and Coup banner
There was a tremendous amount of chaos involved in the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. While there was no question that it was a tragic moment of explosive human aggression, the precise drama leading to that moment is hopelessly tangled in online posts, pictures and surveillance camera footage. This month Quasimondo Physical Theatre presents a theatrical exploration into the tangled mess of events that resulted in the attack as it presents the debut of Red, White and Coup.
More than merely a docudrama, writer/director Brian Rott’s production is a collision of first-hand accounts, memoirs, interviews and transcripts. Documented evidence, music and more twist against the comic surrealism that Rott and Quasimondo have been so successful with over the years that they’ve been onstage. Facts dance with “a dash of fiction” to create something which should serve as an interesting supplemental footnote to the upcoming Republican National Convention downtown. “We’ve taken a number of liberties playing with form and switching style to create an accessible piece that showcases the spectacle and circus of politics,” says Rott. “In many cases we didn’t need to add much, as the content alone proved absurd enough as is.”
Rott is not acting alone. He’s got a group of seven actors who are all working to bring 54 characters to the stage. The challenge is going to lie in keeping the action running as performer look to present portrayals of politicians, lawyers, media influencers and some of the more prominent rioters. It’s going to be a lot to try to juggle, but Rott has plenty of experience rendering wide and wild energy to the stage in surreal variety performances that fuse together an arsenal of disparate elements and fuses them into something breathtakingly coherent. The converted North Milwaukee Village Hall has a spacious warehouse feel about it that could be filled in so many different ways.
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Quasimondo’s shows tend to feel like a circus that’s been pulled through some strange parallel dimension. There’s always a strangely hypnotic distortion and amplification that emerges. That sense of surreal reality warping should serve as an interesting engine for the political drama and satire that rest at the heart of the chaos. Given the right momentum, Rott and company could deliver something that is so rarely offered-up in countless hours of cable news, vlogs, blogs and late-night talk show. Given the right momentum, Quasimondo could deliver a piece of artwork that could transcend the ugliness of contemporary politics.
Quasimondo Physical Theatre’s Red, White and Coup runs July 13-27 at North Milwaukee Arthaus, 5151 North 35th St. For more information visit quasimondo.org.
