At a glance
In “Paradise Park Zoo,” the animals are in cages, but they represent people that are ensnared by their lives.
Available Light Theatre will present the surreal comedy, written by Savannah Reich of Chicago, which will open tonight in the Riffe Center. The 110-minute work premiered in 2014 in Philadelphia.
“It’s a comedy about our inability to take action,” director Eleni Papaleonardos said.
“The play is about habit and internalized oppression — how we’re trapped in our circumstances, or how we allow ourselves to be trapped. My hope is that when people walk out of the theater, their attention might “Paradise Park Zoo” Available Light Theatre Riffe Center’s Studio One Theatre, 77 S. High St. 614-558-7408, www.avltheatre.com 8 tonight through Saturday night, May 12-13 and May 18-20; 2 p.m. May 14 $20, or “pay what you want” at the door
turn to the cages they might not realize they’re in.”
Kim Garrison Hopcraft and Elena Perantoni portray two lionesses sharing a cage.
“I’ve done a lot of weird things with Available Light,” said Garrison Hopcraft, 50, “but this has to be the most off-the-wall thing I’ve ever done with them.”
The actress has never played an animal before.
“Part of acting for me is encompassing the role that I play, being as truthful onstage as possible. But how do you play the truth of a wild carnivore?”
Garrison Hopcraft and Perantoni shaped their performances by watching videos of lions.
“The roles are mostly in our movements — how we lay and sit together,” Garrison Hopcraft said.
“We speak a lot, move and roll together on the floor. ... I love the play’s physicality.”
Her lioness, the matriarch Tatiana, has a distinct personality.
“She’s fairly bitter” she said, “because she’s been used badly by the males in her life.”
Tatiana tells stories to the younger lion, Dee, who wants to escape, about the terrible things that might be outside their cage.
“She wants to feel safe with another lion who won’t leave her, so she manipulates and pulls the heartstrings of the younger lion,” Garrison Hopcraft said.
“Why do we stay in life situations that we might want to leave but don’t? How do we get out of the cage? Do we want to get out of the cages? ... It’s a very funny comedy but also a contemplative play.”
Ian Short plays Pancakes, a chimpanzee stuck in a cage with another chimpanzee, Jenny (Acacia Duncan).
“The cage is a metaphor, but they’re really stuck together,” said Short, 46.
“When the two were a couple, there were
difficulties. Pancakes, who has been feeling alone and left out, tries to reconcile with Jenny. ... In his mind, everything was wonderful when they were together, but she recalls him being quite solitary and unhappy.”
The saving grace for Pancakes may be his sense of humor.
“It’s very dry. He usually undercuts things with a dose of reality.”
Other characters include a red panda and a Komodo dragon sharing a cage, two humans sharing another and a small band of musicians in a fifth.
Papaleonardos praised Reich for her wicked sense of humor.
“When we first read this play in early 2016, we couldn’t stop laughing — until the moment when we were shocked by a scathing line of dialogue,” Papaleonardos said.
The unusual play, which includes singing and puppetry, requires a kaleidoscopic staging that starts with an arena-style configuration with theatergoers, sitting in the middle, surrounded by performers.
The stage and seating will be rearranged during each of two intermissions, when troupe members will take patrons into the lobby before reseating them.
“It’s closer to immersive theater than anything we’ve done before, more intimate and radically different than anything theatergoers have experienced in years in Studio One,” Papaleonardos said.
“As we lead them through this great and hilarious piece, we’re going to take really good care of the audience.”
$25 to $40, or $20 to $35 for students, senior citizens and active military personnel; “Nightcap”: $15 to $20
The New York comedian has appeared on “Inside Amy Schumer” and several late-night talk shows.
7:30 tonight, 7:45 and 10:15 p.m. Friday; and 7 and 9:45 p.m. Saturday