Rumble Theatre’s Penelope goes in and out of focus

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      By Enda Walsh. Directed by Stephen Drover. Presented by the Cultch and Rumble Theatre. At the Cultch’s Historic Theatre on Thursday, September 26. Continues until October 13

      Like a wonkily projected movie, Rumble Theatre’s production of Penelope goes in and out of focus.

      Irish playwright Enda Walsh’s script riffs on Homer’s Odyssey. For 20 years, Penelope has been waiting for Odysseus to return from his adventures, and Penelope’s suitors have been hoping that he won’t. Walsh introduces us to the last four romantic wannabes, who spend their days in the bottom of Penelope’s dry, baking-hot swimming pool, waiting for the moment that she will turn her closed-circuit-TV camera on them and they can pitch their woo.

      These guys are macho assholes. As Quinn, the most competitive, says, “friendships are there to be used, love is a fucking weapon.” But Burns, the youngest, has started to believe that trust is possible among men. And when all four realize that Odysseus will soon return and slaughter them, if somebody doesn’t marry Penelope first, old Fitz and bombastic Dunne start to explore the unfamiliar terrain of honesty.

      Despite the play’s classical—and implicitly timeless—setting, it’s hard to credit the notion of essential masculinity. But the script’s examination of aging is touching. When Quinn refers to “the sausage of our youth”, the image isn’t just about sexual decline. Fitz longs for the relief of senescence: “It’s such a huge effort to maintain the fight. Isn’t that right, boys?” And faced with their imminent deaths, the competitors long to construct meaning and connection out of failure and nothingness.

      Walsh applies an absurd spin to the characters’ existential pickle. When Dunne bombs in his final, self-dramatizing pitch to Penelope, Burns expresses his displeasure with the sarcastic actor’s putdown “Love your work.”

      But I laughed more when I read the script than when I saw it performed. I suspect this has to do with director Stephen Drover’s inconsistent commitment to the script’s comic energy. Sometimes, the electricity is there and the comedy works. The realization that Odysseus will soon return and fillet the suitors throws them into a passage of glorious panic. In this chunk, Sean Devine, who’s playing Dunne, writhes in his chair, desperately trying to justify his fear of, among other things, autumn. And Devine leans into Dunne’s poncy physicality; at times, he’s so enamoured of himself you expect him to burst into interpretive dance. But there’s little comic pleasure in Alex Ferguson’s Quinn.

      The script indicates that Quinn is lusciously narcissistic—he describes himself as a “sensuous Ninja”—but Ferguson plays him pretty much on one, hard-nosed note. Drover also misses a major opportunity for bravura theatrics: a passage that the stage directions describe as “a very accomplished, quick-change cabaret routine” is slow and lacklustre.

      Penelope isn’t only enthusiastically comic, of course. Patrick Keating nails an emotionally naked monologue, in which Fitz articulates his longing for love. And in the most consistently rewarding performance of the evening, Kyle Jespersen makes a skinless—and often hangdog funny—Burns.

      Drew Facey’s swimming-pool set is gorgeously disgusting. And thanks partly to Lindsay Winch’s wordless but openhearted Penelope, the play’s ending is moving. Up to that point, it’s a bumpy ride.

      Comments

      4 Comments

      AH

      Sep 28, 2013 at 9:29am

      I disagree with your notion that the show's pitfall was unused comic energy. I think that is the point. There is a certain darkness to Quinn, a painful 'truth' to his views that the characters want to not believe. This darkness contrasts the comedy, and I don't find it misplaced. The play is not meant to be a romp; as you mentioned, Fitz's deeper inhibitions are anything but funny. With Quinn, his deeper inhibitions are so deeply masked by his narcissitic view on the world, that it too is not funny as we realize his reality.

      Colin Thomas GS

      Sep 28, 2013 at 10:25am

      Thanks for commenting, AH. I'm very interested in hearing from other folks as well. My sense is that this script is very tricky stylistically.

      I certainly agree that there's enormous darkness in Quinn, and in the script more generally. My point about Alex Ferguson's performance is that, if darkness is all we see, it gets a little boring.

      So what am I asking for? You know that bit right off the top in which Ferguson's Quinn flames his sausage and grooves to the Tijuana Brass in unabashed—and comically vulgar—self satisfaction? I'm thinkin' more of that might help.

      AH

      Oct 1, 2013 at 4:38pm

      Hey Colin,

      From your reply, it appears that your qualm is more to do with the script. I agree here. I believe that the script does not give much dynamics to Quinn. Whether or not I like that concept is irrelevant.

      The point here being that it is not entirely correct to pin the issue on the Director/Actor interpretation. From the review, I do not sense the difficulty of the script, and I only understand that the director simply went too hardline on Quinn's darkness.

      Gregg

      Oct 5, 2013 at 10:34pm

      Sexist and insulting to men. Boring. No wonder the theatre was 2/3 empty. Try portraying such negative stereotypes against any other demographic and see what the reaction would be.