‘The Bald Soprano’ talks up the absurd at Covenant College
The acclaimed avant-garde comedy “The Bald Soprano” will make an appearance on the Covenant College stage this season, unraveling the King’s English and “ripping tired tropes into a confetti of non sequiturs and nonsensical hilarity,” producers promise.
Written by absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco, the play toys with the differences between speaking and talking, hearing and listening — and the chaos inspired by miscommunication.
“I don’t know if farce is the right word, but at least you will hurt yourself laughing at some point,” says director and theater professor Camille Hallstrom.
“The Bald Soprano” is a well-circulated classic that has worn many hats over the years, but Hallstrom hopes to crown the production with its most lighthearted if not bizarre toupee.
“The Bald Soprano” begins with the necessary ingredients for any living room comedy: two married couples, a grandfather clock, two armchairs, a maid and an unsuspected visitor. That’s where the similarities end. The play is set in 1950s London, but its themes of one-sided arguments and disconnected conversations remain poignant during the current epoch of Snapchat and Twitter.
“Discourse really has disintegrated in the current culture,” says Hallstrom. “We think we are communicating, but really, we are just saying the sounds that our side likes to applaud.”
If the dialogue sounds like it was copied from an English primer like “Fun With Dick and Jane,” it’s because it was.
“Ionesco was this Romanian sitting in a Paris hotel trying to learn English with one of those phrasebooks, and you know how absurd-sounding those phrases are,” says Hallstrom. “That’s what gave him the idea for this play.”
Junior Abigail DeGraaf, playing hostess Mrs. Smith, says the production reminds her of a family reunion where multiple in-laws meet for the first time.
“The play doesn’t make sense, and that’s why it’s so funny,” says DeGraaf. “There will definitely be some humor coming from the blocking and staging, but the majority will come from the absurd dialogue, the spontaneity of it all — the actions and reactions as well. Somebody will say something random, then somebody will say something more random, and it just builds on itself.”