Despite Weak Structure, Ding Dong Chimes

Ding Dong

written and directed by Elijah Aron

at the Agassiz Theater

through December 12

Ding Dong, an original play by Elijah Aron, brought a circus, complete with tent and side show freaks, to the Loeb Ex last weekend. Aron, a veritable Jack of All Trades, also directed, designed and performed the title song for this piece.

The set design is probably the best feature: a miniature Big Top (if that is not a contradiction in terms) with a rectangular ring flanked on two sides by the audience. The actual stage space was, unfortunately, a little too small and far too narrow, with the result that the cast often had to move about in a rather cramped fashion.

The play deals with Ding Dong the Monkey and his Amazing Circus, and what happens to the fragile hierarchy of power within this little community when Ding Dong dies.

The play might have been considerably stronger if Aron had chosen to focus more on this theme, instead of straying onto countless lesser sub-plots: here, every character has his or her tale to tell, and they do not always gel into a cohesive whole.

Two ragged sisters, one "Hungry" (Zoe Sarnat) and the other an "Idiot" (Andrea Thome), represent the evils of poverty. Sarnat convincingly portrays a "poor, starving orphan waif" who wallows in self-pity before she finds God.

The search for an omnipotent but benevolent God is also fleetingly touched upon during the play, when Sarnat declares: "If there is a higher power, my sister would not be an idiot and I would not be starving to death."

The "idiot sister," played by Andrea Thomes, is a mother in search of her dead babies. Aron flirts briefly with the notion of women victimized by their bodies and by men who want to control them.

It is Thomes's cruel oppressor, Blukoff (Billy Hulkower) who has to utter some of Aron's most banal lines: "Are you the dumbest woman in the world? Do you like being hurt? Sure you do...that's how dumb you are."

Aron's writing is at times uninspired. "He's dead! Oh God, I'm so sorry," declares the Siamese Twin, Ms. Tokatok (Sarah Sidman) upon killing her other half, Mr. Pokapok (Winsome Brown). Or the hungry sister: "Please pity us, we have hungered, we have no home."

An interesting twist is added to the already twisted scenario by a wandering Plague of Madness (Bess Wohl). She flits across the stage, effecting Ovidian metamorphoses among the characters, and uttering cryptically: "I come to the fruits and to the fishes. I come to the flatterer and to the suffering hermit."

Aron seizes this opportunity to offer us a brief commentary on the nature of illusion and self-delusion. As Ms. Tokatok says to Mindo the Hypnotist (Scott Cole): "It would be wonderful to live in...a world of dreams."

One of the most humorous transformations takes Ugga Bugga (Josh Lieb) from flamboyantly capering, gibbering cannibal to a ridiculous figure of suave eloquence who declares: "The eating of a gentleman is incongruous with my fancy civilized ways." A commentary on colonialism and the loss of indigenous tradition? Perhaps.

Aron had material enough for a dozen satirical playlets here. Attempting to cram everything into this one is perhaps the only major flaws of an essentially intriguing production.