The Bald Soprano: Dynamic "anti-play"a success
Lindsay Nielsen, Arts Editor

"Excuse me, madam, but it seems that I have met you before, unless I am mistaken." These are words a man speaks to his wife. They are from a line in Eugene Ionesco's 1950 theatre production The Bald Soprano, recently performed by students at Capilano College.

The Bald Sopranois referred to as an "anti-play," as it does not conform to a plot, has little in terms of character development, and is ridden with contradictions. Desmond Hussey, a third-year student in the Theatre Institute program at Capilano College, and the production's director, notes that Ionesco "hated the theatre of his time. He thought it was contrived."

The Bald Sopranorepresents Ionesco's attempt to illustrate his contention that we live in a world stifled by the "tragedy of language." Hussey says that Ionesco "was discovering how we use language to beat around the bush...what we use as language is a façade to conceal what we're really feeling."

Set in a suburban London living room, the work operates on many levels. The six-member cast was extremely successful in portraying the tension between "proper English behaviour" and carnal desire. Mr. & Mrs. Smith sat in their living room; he read the paper, and was silent most of the time, communicating his desire for peace by abruptly shaking his newspaper; she fluttered about her knitting, and talked incessantly about everything and nothing. Mrs. Smith's inability to sit still and her high-pitched chatter were hilarious, and contrasted with the more sedate-and overtly frustrated-Mr. Smith (Kris Buller). Alicia Keats inhabited her role as the twitchy Mrs. Smith, and her performance displayed both theatrical endurance and a keen understanding of character.

Another set of characters engaged in conversation regarding numerous coincidences they both recently experienced. Their faces were covered in white paint, they were dressed in black, and their manner was reserved. Their dialogue progressed from discussing where they may have seen each other before to the realization that "we live in the same room and sleep in the same bed." Here, Ionesco's profound and disturbing message could not have been more apparent. The two "strangers" were, in fact, Mr. & Mrs. Martin (Paul Campbell and Natalee Fera).

Campbell considers the situation: "The fact that these are two people who have said their vows, share a bed, and supposedly love each other...[and] have strayed from the fire, and the passion that they had and have become total strangers....[makes it] the most tragic part of the play." Campbell says that the process of playing Mr. Martin affected him in a very personal way. "I really began to identify [with Mr. Martin]....certain things that I was doing really seemed to be similar to the character. It felt really depressing." He notes that Mr. Martin's character has caused him to reflect on his own situation. "I've begun noticing a lot of stuff that was brought up in the play in my own life."

In The Bald Soprano, rationality is eclipsed by human energy. In their "proper" English lives, the Smiths and the Martins struggled to "do the right thing," and, in the process, have lost any knowledge of themselves. Mary, the Smith's maid (Nicole L'orsa) and the fire chief (Mike Scriven) acted as subversives who threw emotional repression on it's head. Mary was rather apathetic about her duties as a maid, and glided about the house in an elegant, fire-engine-red dress. The fire chief stopped by for a visit, and his long fire hose, which wound around his torso, strategically found it's nozzle dangling between his legs. At one point when Mary and the fire chief lusted after each other, he exclaimed "it was she who first extinguished my fires!"

The Bald Sopranois performed in an "absurdist" theatre style. While it is full of delightfully vague lines such as "one can say that social progress is definitely better with sugar," it's underlying message could not be more clear. As Campbell notes, Ionesco's work challenges the audience to examine why, frequently in human relationships, "there is not a lot of real, truthful experience. There is just a lot of formalities, crap and small talk to wade through on a daily basis, without a lot of real connection."

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