The Bald Soprano

Producing an Ionesco is usually a choice between doing it straight and emphasizing the naturalistic elements, or stripping down or beefing up the text and emphasizing the absurd. The Hub theatre in their production of The Bald Soprano choses naturalism, and proves quite effectively that the Absurd can be played like drawing room comedy.

Ionesco's play is a brilliant satire of middle-class English society; Mr. and Mrs. Smith sit in their English sitting room after a meal of fish and chips, telling each other how great it is to be English. They are joined by Mr. and Mrs. Martin, and the Fire Chief, who comes looking for fires, but instead ravishes the Maid, and then leaves in search of his Ideal. The play ends in a very uncivil brawl, with the Martins and the Smiths shouting nonsense syllables at each other. Underlying it all is a supreme non-intelligence, the John Bullish buck-up-chaps mentality. The Maid expresses it well when she looks at a content Mr. and Mrs. Martin--"Let's not try to know. Let's leave things as they are." The way things are, however, is vacuous and inane, shot through with hypocrisy and hatred. The movement in the play from banal dialogue interspersed only by a few absurdities, (Mrs. Smith tells the Martins that her husband wets his pants; Mr. Smith says that a good doctor always dies with his patient, as a captain always goes down with his ship) finally to the rapid-fire staccato of words at the end is one of the disintegration and violent destruction of their entire world.

The Hub protrays this world admirably. The set is classic; pictures of the Doges' Palace, Grandmother, and the family dogs overlook crumpled chairs and a decanter of port. The costumes are all very tweedy, exuding pipe tobacco or rose water. The acting blends right in, and except for the usual accent problems (why can't American actors stop trying to convince us they are really British?) is generally quite competent. The women are the best; Gloria Fisher as Mrs. Smith is the Perfect Lady, who covers up her viciousness by layers of daubbed on gentility. Sarah Kindleberger as Mrs. Martin demonstrates the marvellous British ability of placing one's foot in one's mouth. The production has an endearing air of unpretentiousness about it; even the short cast-audience discussion afterwards works well.

Just before the play descends from confusion to chaos, Mrs. Smith says that "in real life, one must look out of the window." In Ionesco, the glass is warped, so that the images are distorted, but they are real images nonetheless. The beauty of Ionesco is that through distortion of the images he is able to show the distortion of reality. The Hub production retains enough of the subtlety of Ionesco so that the reality is clear, but is absurd enough to make it funny. It's a nice blend.