Skip to main content

The Double

The Double
Babes With Blades Theatre Company

Fun With Swashbuckling

I wasn’t going to bother seeing this despite getting numerous offers from the various coupon/deal companies that seem to fill my in-box with offers for mostly massages and pedicures. Then I realized that in only a few minutes I could walk to the theatre from my apartment so I said what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. I wasn’t disappointed. Don’t look for a profound message in The Double. Right up front the director tells us that it’s “screwball comedy.” But what great fun it is, none-the-less.
The Double is a play about a play—always a winning concept in my book. Set in the 1940s The Double concerns a troupe of actors trying to mount a play about Cyrano de Bergerac and naturally are struggling to find funding. There are numbers of romantic involvements in the script, one that turns out to be a reunion of a married couple, another that makes a discovery about women who love women and yet another case of mistaken intentions—men who are friendly are not necessarily interested in a romantic involvement.
Throughout all of this craziness we are treated to a number of scenes on the vast open floor of the set that are nothing short of breathtakingly energetic and exciting examples of physical theater. In one scene a woman whose sensibilities have been offended by a faux-suitor throws a tantrum to end all tantrums not to mention throwing her shoes, purse and any other object she can lay her hands on. In yet another scene in a 1940s night club, we are given an energetic series of dances by two women who must certainly have learned their craft at Actor’s Gymnasium or some other school for circus arts. It was one of the most absorbing pieces of choreography I’ve seen in some time.
Then, there is the final sword fight involving nearly all the cast. What else would you expect from a theatre company named Babes With Blades? When it’s all over, not only are the actors completely relaxed without a trace of exhaustion (only the audience is exhausted by the action) but they have secured their funding.
What a great time and a chance to really laugh, smile and enjoy yourself for a couple of hours.

The Company

According to the program, Babes With Blades Theatre Company uses stage combat to place women and their stories center stage. They do that to perfection. Coming up next March Babes With Blades will be presenting Trash | babeswithblades.org. Check it out, I’m sure you’ll have the time of your life, but don’t sit too close to the flashing hardware!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Life After Facebook

Life After Facebook Reflections on How Life Improves When Social Media Is Abandoned The Problem Most people that use Facebook regularly will quickly admit to the fact that the social media platform is highly addictive as well as an almost complete waste of time. We will do almost anything to generate that endorphin-stimulating "Like" that others bestow on our egos so easily and thoughtlessly. We post meme after meme or make silly and pointless comments or "respond" to someone else's pointless posting with our own pointless emoji so easily delivered. Underlying all of this activity many if not most people will discover, if they look deeply into their own hearts, that the quest is not unlike the quest for the Holy Grail. Like The Quest for the Grail, the reward is to become a highly valued citizen, respected and admired for our perceptive insights and even, perhaps, leadership toward some sort of ShangriLa that is only dimly imagined. Like the Quest for the Gra...

Independence Day, 2021

Independence Day, 2021 Some reflections after a walk in Winnemac Park The Walk I live near Winnemac Park on Chicago's North side, a forty-acre jewel that has five baseball diamonds, a soccer field, a prairie reconstruction, a children's play-lot and some community gardens. It is bordered by Chappell Elementary School on the West and Amundsen High School on the East. (None of the Chappel kids wear full armor to school and most of the Amundsen kids are not blond Swedes despite the Chappel "Knight" mascot and the Amundsen "Viking" mascot.) There are apparently no descendants of knights or vikings around to object to cultural appropriation, so for the moment the mascots are secure in their sinecures. The park also features Jorndt Field, a football field with an artificial surface believed to have a capacity of 6,000 spectators. (I was unable to find a definitive answer to this question using Google.) By walking around the edges of the park and making a back...

The Gentleman Caller

Raven Theater,  6157 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60660 Now thru May 27, 2018 Raven Theater Website Friday evening (April 27, 2018) I had a remarkable experience attending a performance of The Gentleman Caller, a world premier production of a Philip Dawkins play. The play attempts to imagine what might have happened when Tennessee Williams met William Inge in Inge’s St. Louis garden apartment and later in a Chicago hotel room in 1944 and 1945. We don’t know exactly what took place, except that Williams encouraged Inge to pursue play-writing. Dawkins’ script attempts to recreate those moments based on what we know of the two men’s lives. The fact that the program has a credit for David Wooley as Fight & Intimacy Choreographer should alert you to some of the play’s content. (The extent of the fighting was a single face slap as I recall, if that helps you imagine more clearly.) Both Williams and Inge were homosexual, although radically different in their self-acceptance and ultim...