'Oratorio' A One Woman Wonder

Flowers are placed upside-down in a vase, a mouse drags a dead cat, and laundry is doused by a watering can; a cast member climbs a curtain that appears too weak to hold his weight and another falls into holes that aren’t really there. “Aurélia’s Oratorio” is full of such bizarre moments, which combine to create a poetic and wonderful production. Aurélia Thierrée’s practically one-woman show, written and directed by Victoria Thierrée Chaplin and running at the American Repertory Theatre through Jan. 3, is a surreal evening of intricate choreography, acrobatics, and optical illusion.

At the start of “Oratorio,” the stage is dominated by its red velvet curtain and a large chest of drawers, offering little hint of the spectacle to come. Shortly after the house lights dim, though, a voicemail message plays in French and the top-left drawer opens. A pale, lithe arm extends into the darkness, a lit cigarette in its hand.

The next few minutes are simultaneously hilarious, disturbing, and beautiful, and they aptly set the tone for the rest of the show. An impossible series of limbs reach out from within the drawers to dress each other, light a candle, and pour wine. Finally, Aurélia emerges from the center drawer.

It seems too easy to cite Thierrée’s family as an influence, but the comparison is inevitable. Her grandfather is Charlie Chaplin, and her great-grandfather Eugene O’Neill. “Aurélia’s Oratorio” is itself the brainchild of Thierrée’s mother, Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, who is widely considered to be responsible for the rebirth of the modern circus.

In what may be a family tradition, the play is largely wordless, except for Martinez repeatedly calling Aurélia’s name. This, combined with the plaintive male tones of the phone message that precedes the show, vaguely suggests an unexplored romantic storyline. The “Oratorio” would benefit from choosing one of two directions—either further developing the underlying plot or abandoning the storyline altogether and indulging in pure imagery.

The common thread of these spectacles is one of reversal and of questioning impossibility. But the conceit never grows stilted or predictable. Sure, the idea of someone walking on her hands isn’t particularly unique in and of itself, but in “Aurélia’s Oratorio,” the figure also carries a hat and purse on her elevated feet. There is a strong sense of wonder to the production, but it maintains a dark undercurrent that makes it more the stuff of Edward Gorey than Dr. Seuss.

And so “Aurélia’s Oratorio” manages to stay pitch-perfect, with a few exceptions. In one of the weaker moments, a disco ball appears onstage, and the generally unobtrusive score switches to an accordion-inflected circus song with fairly raunchy lyrics. The segment is too patently weird, and it belies the elegant and understated nature of the rest of the production. But even here there is a moment of genius; with the aid of creative costuming, Martinez bends over to appear as both the male and female lower halves of a pair of dancers.

Another highlight comes when Aurélia’s head is quite cleverly made the star of a puppet show for...puppets. But the puppets’ appearances extend beyond that vignette and become a little too creepy. Their presence seems random and not as satisfyingly counterintuitive as the Oratorio’s other reversals—like when Aurélia buys an ice cream cone that’s boiling hot.

One of the most interesting parts of the show was the varying responses elicited by each of Aurélia’s feats. One particularly stunning trick inspired both the collective gasp of the audience and the persistent guffawing of solitary man.

As the show deserved, though, the audience response was overwhelmingly positive, if somewhat difficult to verbalize. I found the reaction of the woman sitting in front of me to be appropriately vague in its enthusiasm: “That was...awesome.”