Strange.
If someone asked me to use a single word to describe metromaniacs, show that just opened at the New Jersey Shakespeare Theater at Drew University in Madison, that’s what I was going to say.
Strange.
If I were asked to describe it in two words, it would be very strange.
Metromaniacs is set in the early 18th century in beautiful Paris, when aristocrats in the French capital were wild about poetry and the men and women who wrote it. It was the hard rock music of its day. The play is about a man who is writing a poem/play and tries to put everyone he knows in the play as a character. There are, according to the author, five plots in the show, but you’d need a detective to find any of them (not even TV’s Columbo could fine one).
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Metromaniacs there’s no plot, no real major characters, and not much of a set. I adapted by David Ives from the production of 1738. The French author was Alexis Piron.
It’s hilarious though, a very nice night in Paris and in Madison too. I couldn’t stop laughing, especially when author David Ives throws in modern-day people and non-historical references (such as American singer Britney Spears when discussing the French geographic region of Brittany). There are men engaged in a duel with empty pistols. A man says the ‘subway’ in the title refers to the New York City subway system. The men are in love with two different women, but it is not clear who is who or who is not who. One scene is crazier than the next.
The play begins with a French girl, Lisette, being fondled by two men. Or is it the French girl Lucille (cover girl for Botox). Then the game just goes nuts. Is she really Lisette or is she really Lucille? Is the one who is seducing her the real cheater? Is the other a wretch and a wretch or just one who was wretched?
And what is a woee anyway?
Who is Mondor, the flamboyant playboy who wanders into the game and seems out of touch with the world, and the entire plot, and every character, until the last scene. Why does the middle man who is writing a play, Francalou, keep trying to get everyone into the story in his play? Who is he, anyway?
Who really is the old man who is given a part in Francalou’s show that requires him to scream, like in WOWL? and continues to scream as loud as he can throughout the story.
Who is Damis, another playwright, or is he really a playwright? He is really, who is he?
The game has no purpose. It’s plotless. It doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t make any sense. However, you can’t take your eyes and ears off her. You’re hooked, right from the start.
You just have to love the wit behind this show, magnificently, and I mean magnificently, directed by Brian B. Crowe (oh, he really is Brian B. Crowe)
When will the play be written on the show? And from whom? Is the playwright who writes the play in the play really the playwright? Is this show really a show?
There are a million subgenres in the game, all of which go nowhere. Director Crowe gets great performances from his cast. On stage it looks like there are at least 12 thousand actors in the play, but there are only seven.
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The talents of the actors make all the characters come to life so that you see them as people, regardless of who they are or who they are trying to be, or understood to be, or even misunderstood to be.
First, there is Francalou, the host, the man who is writing what seems to be an endless show. It twists and turns and creates the central part of the story. He is played wonderfully by Brent Harris. DeShawn White as Lisette and Billie Wyatt as Lucille are the two beautiful women in the show. The inexplicable Mondor is played by Austin Kirk. Christian Frost is Damis, or is he really Damis? Ty Lane is Dorante John Ahlin is the old howler Baliveau. Individually, they are endless and collectively a treasure.
The only thing this show even needed was Abbott and Costello and the cast Seinfeld.
I can just see Kramer in 1738, can’t I? Parlez vous Jerry?
Oh wait. Wait. I can hear Baliveau howling in the parking lot in front of my building.
HHHHHHHOOOOOWLLLLLL !
Metromaniacs is on stage until September 4. Click here for ticket information.
PHOTO BY SARAH HALEY
Bruce Chadwick worked for 23 years as an entertainment writer/critic for the New York Daily News. Later, he served as arts and entertainment critic for the History News Network, a national weekly online magazine. Chadwick holds a PhD in History and Cultural Studies from Rutgers University. He has written 31 books on US history and has lectured on history and culture around the world. He is a professor of history at New Jersey City University.