Athenaeum Theatre
Tickets: Ticket Master or the box office (773.832.0651)
Through March 6, 2004
By: Gordon West
It’s a sort of natural foyer that would lead to a creepy underground tunnel. Dark corners, caves, curves, stalactites and their ground dwelling counterparts lurking somewhere beyond - just the type of place where extraordinary undergrowth runs rampant, where trees tower and nature prevails, where children scream for the giddy sake of echoing, and a ghost visits every evening at precisely six o’clock. It is in this clearing in the woods near a small French provincial town where the fantastical tale of The Enchanted unfolds.
Written by Jean Giraudoux (translated by Maurice Valency), The Enchanted, presented by director Laura Forbes and the Simple Theater troupe, is a story in which the relationship of a young French schoolteacher and an elusive ghost explores the transition from life to death, from youthful wisdom to over-wizened ignorance and from blatant materialism to imaginative and fantastical spirituality.
Isabelle (Jen Hines) is the young schoolteacher. As the interim instructor for a class of several young girls, she teaches in her own way such subjects as botany, arithmetic and French culture. Isabelle believes we are all of us wise in our youth and that our natural intelligence devolves into muddled confusion after several years of stiflingly formal education. Therefore she has a romantically beautiful manner of explaining natural phenomena; trees are the rooted brothers of man, a character named Arthur is responsible for all of the unexplained mischief in the world and earthquakes aren’t disasters but rather ways of the world maintaining its harmony.
The children, who absolutely adore their teacher, bring endearing juvenile jest and energy to the stage. One young girl prances about in ballet slippers, another mischievously ties shoelaces together and all infectiously giggle.
An Inspector (Aaron Gingrich), sent by the government to restore order to the out-of-sorts town is introduced into the mix. He is rigid and excruciatingly by-the-book. So stiflingly strict is he that he monitors dreams (in order to ensure that they are indeed French enough), designates the formerly bright blue school uniforms to be a very dull black, and makes clear his distaste for women, spirituality and happiness. He sees Isabelle and ultimately her ghost friend as the source of the town’s disorderliness and ridiculously plans to rid of the ghost with a hired executioner.
Several other members of the township offer comedic and philosophic insight to the situation. The Doctor (Brandon Campbell) reminds all that nature indeed takes care of us if we are in tune with it; Leonide (Jenn Remke) and Armande (Leila Bréton), two old spinsters, provide gossip that only fuels the fire of the Inspector’s need to realign the town’s values; The Supervisor (Michael Rice) is the valiant and faithful suitor, a true gentlemen vying for the affections of Isabelle; The Mayor (Talon Beeson), full of nervous twitches and laughter, runs about town attempting to make everything seem normal to the Inspector – including a citizen who believes himself a poodle.
The ghost (Todd Jackson) represents death, the key to transition into the spiritual world. Nightly, Isabelle meets him in hopes to learn more of the other side. She acts as a sort of ambassador between the fleshly and the ethereal, explaining the latter to the former. Eventually, Isabelle will have to decide whether or not she is ready to accept either the ghost’s premature invitation into the spiritual world, or the hand of a humanly suitor in marriage.
The show runs Thursday-Saturday at the Athenaeum Theater (Studio 1) at 2936 N Southport through March 6. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at Ticket Master or the box office or call 773.832.0651.
