Caligari a Need-To-See

Port Folio Weekly
October 14, 2008
Montague Gammon III

An eerie violin and spectral violinist introduce an especially interesting, and perhaps important, piece of local theater.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, adapted by Philip Odango from the classic 1919 film of the same name, is a mixed media phantasmagoria melding components as disparate as a freak show and serial killings with the nature of reality itself.

It possesses a rare and compelling theatricality, exploring performing space and visual and aural and emotional avenues of expression, in ways that may not break totally new ground, but which are sufficiently uncommon to serve as novel. Caligari also manages to be genuinely entertaining, no small feat for youthfully generated avant garde theatre.

The Caligari production team, most notably lighting, sound and video designer Ben Fuglaar and Odango, as director and scenic designer, have brought to fruition a remarkably coherent vision deserving serious attention and discussion.

Costumer Debi McGill, hair and makeup designer Grace Swiney, mask designers Christie Whiting and Anna Sosa, propsperson and production manager Donna Dickerson and film lighting designer Phil Duffy, along with composers Matti Paalanen and Teemu Vehkala, all deserve praise for their important contributions.

The show’s coherence makes overlooking its low budget, painted plywood superficialities easy. Some of the acting has something like that same quality, the actor showing through the character. Again, that’s forgivable in this context. Yet Ashley Christopher Leach, as the fortune telling sleep-walking Cesare, gives a remarkably compelling, almost wordless performance – Don’t sit front and center if you are easily unnerved! Anna Sosa is consistently sharp as the victimized romantic lead Jane.

Caligari is exactly the sort of production for which small, risk taking theatres such as 40th Street Stage exist. When the gamble works, as it certainly does here, it’s also the sort of show that local audiences need to see.