I, FIGARO
That’s about half of I, Figaro, and if it’s all there was, the show might still be worth the trip to Curious Theatre Branch’s cramped new quarters in Wicker Park. Beaumarchais the man, of course, was a brilliant playwright and a still more brilliant controversialist, a master of invective, who fought and won his private quarrels in the court of public opinion through pamphlets that are still read as literature. Peter Reinemann as Beaumarchais is actorly in an old-fashioned sense: He growls and roars, sounds his vowels like musical notes, self-consciously plays with prose rhythms as if they were verse. He doesn’t sound natural–even though an exaggerated sound is perfectly in character for this most exaggerated of men. But as he works his way through this remarkable material–the pleas, the railing, the exquisitely constructed sorrow–he gradually lays bare the strange duality of a man of letters who cares passionately for technique even when mourning a lost life.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Coauthor Chris Pretorius, a veteran of South Africa’s Market Theatre, directed. And if he’s the one responsible for the tone of the piece, he’s a valuable addition to the local scene. The real glory of I, Figaro is the way it gets its points across. The script isn’t really written: it’s constructed out of found pieces. Figaro and Beaumarchais finally converse near the end of the play, but nothing they say is as powerful as the conversation of style they’ve been having all along. These are men trapped in genres–young Figaro in farce, old Beaumarchais in a tedious kind of tragedy–that don’t express the complexities of their souls. Figaro is doomed to be mannered, Beaumarchais to be tedious. Figaro must conceal; Beaumarchais needn’t–no one listens. Figaro’s youthful vigor is wasted in mannerism; Beaumarchais is vigorous only in memory. It’s the ages of man done as theatrical history, and it’s admirable.
