If you didn’t like the circus as a kid, stay away…far away. It’s Bertolt Brecht gone big top in director Brian Evans' fun and frenetic yet also philosophical reimagining of Man Equals Man.
The play, written in 1926, is by no way archaic, as Evans flings it into modern times, under a circus tent. It’s a beautifully crafted set that really does capture the circus environment, a larger than life MAN=MAN atop it all, flashing aglow at key moments. A moving British flag platform spins the action around and lifts the characters higher on stage.
Man is a tale of identity and the malleability of man. Galy Gay (Eb Madson) is a hap-hazard, portly porter who wobbles around the stage with little purpose to his being. When he encounters Polly (Drew O’Bryan), Uriah (Eric Lynch) and Jesse (Justine Blocksom), a group of soldiers looking to replace a missing comrade, Jip (Zach Kopciak), he’s given one- becoming the new Jip. The next nearly two and a half hours is a quest through their travels and the transformation of a man, as they encounter leading lady Widow Begbick (Heather Petersen) and an ensemble of “natives” and other soldiers.
Here’s where the circus comes in though. All the characters are dressed as clowns. Gay wears checkered overalls, clown shoes and a face full of white paint. The soldiers also have painted faces and colorful hair that is not something Brecht could have ever seen coming when he wrote this in the mid-1920s. It’s a surrealist aura around the stage, clown soldiers gallivanting whimsically.
The first act delivers a good deal of laughter. Slapstick comedy is abound with Kopciak bringing the best, particularly when Jip’s head becomes stuck in a temple and he loses a patch of his red hair. You know it’s Man Equals Man 2011-style when characters drop their shoulders down in an ode to the ‘Bernie.’ While there's a slew of silliness and slapstick, Begwick emerges, beer wagon in tow and enchants the stage. You are captivated by her every move, entranced by her red bee’s nest of hair, so voluminous it could very well hold a bottle of beer.
She has a Medusa-like power, wooing Bloody Five (J.P. Politz) into a sensual standstill as the lights go down. But, then, like the play itself offers a series of surprises, Bloody Five catapults out of his trance and back into his tough guy character.
Petersen exquisitely delivers a number of monologues giving some guidance to the feverish goings-on. Madson also does an adequate job providing the more insightful lines of dialogue that really make you think. He says, “be the way that people want you to be...because it’s so easy.” In that line, he so perfectly encapsulates the transformation of his character from Galy to Jip.
Following the intermission, that change goes into full force. Madson’s jolly early demeanor descends into the dark world of a deadly soldier. Jip’s nothing like Gay and Madson smoothly transitions to a vastly different character as the play also gains a much darker tone. You’re left to ponder what is one’s identity, who is man, and if everybody is really the same. But the time it takes to get to the narrative’s conclusion drags on. While the first act is engaging, the second slogs along with not enough thought-provoking moments to outweigh the unnecessary.
Evans' vision of Man Equals Man is surrealist, even Kubrick-esque. The colors and dark nature are reminiscent of some aspects of the Kubrick classic A Clockwork Orange. There’s a similar bit of mind manipulation and transformation that occurs to Alex present in Man.
Man Equals Man is not equivalent to perfection, just as its characters’ identities are imperfect. It borders on the cusp of going too far over-the-top but remains visually engaging throughout. Man’s a bag of popcorn with a few kernels unpopped but mostly pretty tasty and definitely not burnt.
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