Laughing at Death

THE RIDICULOUS tramples victoriously over the sublime in Kirkland House Drama Society's production of Gian-Carlo Menotti's serious The Medium followed by P.D.Q. Bach's rollicking The Stoned Guest. It is simply impossible to come away from this dual presentation pondering the somber thoughts of The Medium when these dark thoughts are washed over with light P.D.Q. mockery. Although Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach) might have revelled in this jocular juxtaposition, Menotti would doubtless have been displeased.

The Medium opens on a black stage with a bare table, and some white gauze sheets hanging from the ceiling. Monica, the Medium's daughter (Katharine J. Kean) stands in her mother's salon, dressed in white, singing to her mute friend, Toby (Joseph Lee). The fun stops when Baba (Belle Linda Halpern) enters. This room and stage are clearly hers. Her dark eyebrows and dress match the black floors. In preparation for the sham seance. Monica hides behind a gauze screen where she can be the false voice of dead spirits, while Baba seats herself at the table.

The seance goes just as Baba planned. But, suddenly she feels cold hands upon her throat. Rushing her clients out the door, she blames Toby for scaring her, while fearing that the hands she felt were actually the hands of the dead. On another night. Baba hears a sound that does not reply when she calls out to it. Possessed by fear, she shoots her pistol in the dark "at this nothingless" and Toby falls dead.

SUCH A solemn opera is bound to be slightly melodramatic, but this cast manages to avoid it somehow. The problems, however, include a few weak stage blockings, causing overcrowding in the corners of the stage. The white vs. black costume motif molds the opera into a fairy tale rather than allowing it to unfold like a mystery.

Despite these minor qualms, this particular performance of The Medium has its own evocative strengths. The orchestra, directed by Kenneth N. Getz, working with a rather tricky score of music, does fairly well spinning out inhuman moaning, laughing, crying and sighing, even though it sometimes overpowers the human voices on stage. It is the singers themselves, however, who make particular moments within the opera memorable.

Every actor sends at least one memorable chill up the spine. Monica (Katharine J. Kean), with her pristine appearance and voice, looks a bit too pure to be a daughter of Baba, but is excellent as the innocent ghost of a dead child. When she sings as a false spirit, her clean, lifeless half-tones convincingly conjure up the image of a dead child searching for her mother.

Baba (Belle Linda Halpern) appears as dark as her troubled soul. Her voice, a bit weaker and rougher than Monica's, blends smoothly with her daughter's. When they sing a lullaby to calm Baba, the soothing voices hardly betray that the lullaby is about a dead lover with "eyes of glass and feet of stone."

Toby faces a difficult acting problem. He should be charming enough to be loved by Monica but disquieting enough to terrify Baba. The Toby in this performance (Joseph Lee) strikes a compromise somewhere between charm and dumb-foundedness, coming off somewhat like a sad hound. Toby is less of a presence than he could be, making Monica's love look more like pity and Baba's fear only the fear of silence itself.

Most importantly, this performance escapes parodying its own seriousness. How strange then, after such an accomplishment, to follow up this fragile solemnity with Bugs Bunny and P.D.Q. Bach, as if to undermine the whole endeavor.

P.D.Q. Bach's The Stoned Guest is yet a sharper spear in the chest of dramatic opera than Bugs Bunny. To compliment or condemn the acting or the singing in this "opera" is to insult Peter Schickele's frivolous intention.

With a couple of trombone blasts, an amazon of a woman, sporting gold sequins, helmet and spear, rambles onto the stage to tell us she got lost in this forest running away from a clumsy abductor who dropped her from her balcony. This lady of the lowlands. Donna Ribalda (Melody Scheiner) feigns gusto in her aria, but soon gives in to boredom.

Carmen Ghia (Judith Kellock) then skips into the forest dressed like a Spanish gypsy with castenets, rose in hand.

As soon as the two women are asleep, snoring and snorting, a little man toddles up to center stage and sings. "Look at me. Tell me what you see." His two short legs in pink tights stick out of a black velvet tunic. This little man, Don Octave (Matt Olivia), is Donna Ribalda's abductor and brother. For all his pink flakiness, the Spanish gypsy lady adores him.

Meanwhile, Donna Ribalda worries about the weather. A dog. Berenice (Thomas Schneider), walks in and pees on the pink man. A monk in a silver mask, the father of Carmen Ghia, II Commendatoreador (Martin Marks), enters. Everyone kills everyone, and there is a happy ending.

By the end of this evening, we have reached the peak of the ridiculous. Practically everyone in the two operas meets a terrible fate. But everyone in the audience is laughing.