THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater review
SOURCE: BY MONTAGUE GAMMON III, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BREAK
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
THEATRE DU JOUR, a duo of movement-trained professional performers from New York, started ``hors d'oeuvre'' with an amusing, wordless duel for dominance between two chefs.
There followed a fun concertina recital by Mary Clark, in which the music played second fiddle, so to speak, to her facial antics. Andrew Braum performed a cute, albeit not wholly original, struggle between a clown and a balloon stuck on his finger. The obligatory pantomime of boy meeting girl grew out of that passage.
Clark's bit as a sign-language interpreter for a concert of yodeling really was clever, though a bit longer than necessary.
Then the mimes opened their mouths, and the show revealed itself as the comedic equivalent of ``The Emperor's New Clothes.'' The remaining skits were nearly as bare of humor as that fabled ruler was of royal attire.
Certainly Clark sang remarkably well, given that she was standing on her head. Her inverted gyrations, like her position, had a certain novelty value.
Representing a beautician by a rod puppet made from a hair spray can and a phallic bouffant wig showed the kind of cleverness that would be commendable in a moderately talented adolescent.
The audience got a long-winded monologue by a zealous student of sheep. Braum did provoke some hearty laughter the first few times he incorporated a bleat into his speech, and a chuckle when he stopped in mid-sentence literally to ruminate, but that humor was a function of his delivery, not of the text.
What was missing in the verbal pieces was the economy of content and intensity of presentation that were the strengths of the first scene. Instead of the succinct clarity that marked Braum's elegant placement of a single kitchen utensil on a bare counter, the audience got ``shaggy dog'' stories whose point was their deliberate lack of resolution.
If even the silliest premises, such as the sheep monologue or the German translation of ``Feelings,'' had been put forward with some intensity, they would have succeeded as satire. They didn't need to be bigger or louder, they just needed to show the fire of zealotry that could have defined their boundaries.
Time and again, the performance gave the impression that more rehearsal or development was needed to sharpen the focus. If this show hadn't come complete with a press kit quoting previous reviews, one could easily have thought it was a work in progress.
The show relied more than once on humor of the nudge-and-wink school. ``We're in this together,'' the performers say with a figurative little elbow in the ribs, ``we're in the know,'' and that makes an otherwise pointless skit about Elvis worshipers funny.
This isn't the same as ``in jokes,'' which require a shared knowledge for appreciation, though the show had its share of them. This approach assumes that membership in a select group automatically renders as laughable the actions of those who are not included.
More than one scene ran out of inspiration before it ran out of material. Others lacked crisp execution. In either case, the impression was of incomplete preparation. by CNB