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The Mustache
Chicago Reader, December 24,
1999
Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1999
Chicago Free Press, December 22, 1999
Windy City Times, December 30, 1999
Chicago Sun-Times, December 22, 1999
Chicago Reader, December
24, 1999
I can recall few Chicago productions as compulsively
fascinating as this adaptation of neogothic French author
Emmanuel Carrère’s surrealistic novel. The story
is utterly unpredictable yet fiendishly logical as the unnamed
hero (played to perfection, with an amiable sort of Tony
Perkins neurosis, by Mark St. Amant) first suspects his wife
and colleagues of playing a practical joke, then questions
his wife’s sanity–and his own–and finally
seeks escape in Hong Kong, of all places.
Directed and adapted with commendable precision
and confidence by Katie Taber, the serpentine narrative takes
the path of a particularly vivid dream, echoing the works
of such artists as Franz Kafka, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and
Luis Buñuel while exploring our tenuous hold on the
fragile realities of our lives. Virtually every element in
Thirteenth Tribe’s hallucinatory production, from Ginger
Farley’s haunting, witty choreography to Mike Frank’s
alternately soothing and propulsive sound design to Joanna
Settle’s minimal yet evocative set and lighting, is
both wonderfully imaginative and absolutely professional.
This is an uncommonly, even dizzyingly daring, thought-provoking
and entertaining 100 minutes of theatre.
- Adam Langer -
Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1999
Emmanuel Carrère is not widely known
in the United States. Even though he has been promoted as “the
Stephen King of France,” only two tales by this contemporary
Parisian writer have been translated and published in the
United States. One is a gruesome story of kidnapping called "Class
Trip," and the other is "The Mustache," a
metaphysical story that proceeds from the hero’s radical
decision to shave off the hair above his mouth.
Thirteenth Tribe, one of Chicago’s more
progressive fringe troupes, persuaded Carrère to allow
Katie Taber to both dramatize and direct The Mustache, which
opened Monday night at the Athenaeum Studio Theatre. The
resultant show is a rather bizarre but nonetheless engaging
theatrical stew that seems to have been simmered stylistically
with equal amounts of Kafka, Camus, David Mamet’s “Edmond” and
the movie “La Femme Nikita.”
With the help of a terrific lead performance
from Mark St. Amant (as M), Taber has forged a slick and
precise production with lots of stimulating visual tricks
and deftly forged minor characters created with precision
by David Divita and Doran Schranz. Despite the small space,
designer Joanna Settle has created a fascinating tactile
environment with the use of lots of non-traditional materials,
all of which are lit with great precision.
This is a smart, provocative and quite haunting
show that not only introduces a new writer but does so with
great panache. If christmas drives you crazy anyway, be careful
here. This might be the mustache that broke the camel’s
back.
- Chris Jones -
Chicago Free Press, December 22, 1999
Concepts of identity and insanity dance wildly
around the stage in The Mustache, a disconcerting play packed
with beautiful images and enthusiastic performances that’s
about the farthest thing from holiday fare you could imagine.
In this world premiere adaptation of Emmanuel
Carrère’s novel, the psychic savages of Thirteenth
Tribe plunge the audience into a world where nothing can
be trusted, not even what you’ve witnessed with your
own eyes.
In an exhaustingly athletic performance, St.
Amant pulls off the demanding job of inhabiting a character
with whom the audience must identify in spite of the fact
that he’s probably crazy. (M does begin all too quickly
to imagine his wife building a conspiracy against him.) DeAcetis
likewise deftly portrays Agnes, ranging from mischievous
to evil to overwrought, with a continually shifting perspective.
Visually, aurally and kinetically, director
Katie Taber and her crew excel at creating mood, from M’s
increasingly frenzied psychological distress to the soothing
respite of a beach. Designer Joanna Settle’s spare
but versatile set makes excellent use of a small space, and
the movement is beautifully handled by Ginger Farley in a
play more choreographed than some musicals.
The synergy of these many elements, along with
the fascinating questions raised, will likely live in your
head long after The Mustache ends.
- Web Behrens -
Windy City Times, December 30, 1999
Backed by Mike Frank’s painterly sound
design, social rituals are conducted in nimble-footed quadrilles
as giddy as a Caulder mobile, while connubial love is consummated
in adagios choreographed like slo-mo wrestling matches. Beds
convert to drafting tables and bathtubs to sampan ferries
in seconds, props are velcroed to the walls and plucked off
as needed–and don’t forget the crop of subnasal
whiskers that must be grown and harvested in full views of
the audience twice in the course of the play’s action.
- Mary Shen Barnidge -
Chicago Sun-Times, December 22, 1999
Thirteenth tribe transfers the surreal paranoia
of the lead character in The Mustache to the audience in
its world-premiere staging of Emmanuel Carrère’s
maddeningly metaphoric novel.
Taber directs this deceptively uncomplicated
piece with semi-stylized grace capable of infusing fluid
mystery into its mechanistic aura. Choreographer Ginger Farley’s
tantalizingly serpentine but sudden jerky movements add to
the production’s edgy irony.
Mark St. Amant’s tortured M remains a
sturdy presence whose integrity remains intact even as he
gives in to the quietly threatening forces around him. He
manages to move through a phantasmagoric haze on solid footing–an
impressive theatrical achievement. He is well paired with
Anne DeAcetis as a sweetly diabolical Agnes.
This impeccably crafted production revels in
the unbearable inner pain of silent torment. Thirteenth Tribe
transforms The Mustache into a tonsorial nightmare where
collective indifference stings sharper than a razor.
- Lucia Mauro -
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