The Bricklayers’ Twelfth Night Scores International Flair

BY Becky Brett

The Bricklayers and Paris’ Collectif Masque are reaching across time and space. The two theatres collaborated on a Twelfth Night now running at the Athenaeum; a Twelfth Nightset in the future, with a 1970s feel and…masques.

For the Bricklayers ensemble, led by Matt Trucano, this is a launching pad production—mixing Chicago storytelling with European sensibilities.

This Twelfth Night is set in the year 2103. Viola has crash-landed on an Earth, which has been at war for the last 100 years, leaving everyone on edge and suspicious. Viola’s home planet does not know what war is, and it is her optimism that brings everyone around to a happy place.

The production was directed by Mariana Araoz of Collectif Masque and her husband, Christophe Patty, who worked extensively on characterization through mask and clown techniques taught to the ensemble.

Trucano met and worked with Araoz at St. Olaf College in Minneapolis, where he was a student and she was a director and mask teacher. “It’s a play I always dreamed about to direct,” said Araoz who said her inspiration for the production was the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.

Trucano and Araoz described the production as “old-fashioned futuristic—the futuristic of the ’70s.” Meredith Barry, who plays Viola, added that they watched the Jane Fonda movie, Barbarella, for additional inspiration. However the goal was not to be campy, just to have fun with it. Trucano added, “The situations are ridiculous, but none of us are laughing at our own jokes.

Araoz explained that she wanted the actors to play the truth and not for laughs, and she described how working with mask can bring that out. “Mask theatre takes you to say the truth,” she explained. Since the mask cannot change, she described how a character in mask really hones in on his purpose in the play. “Mask is obsession—one line, one color. The characters in mask are guiding us to one point.”

As an actor working in mask, Trucano described the experience as “another person you have to invite into yourself.”

Araoz does not let the actors see themselves in their masks, preferring instead for the actor to use the audience as their mirror. This builds a very strong connection between the actor and the audience. Although the movements in the play are highly choreographed, because the actors are working with a different audience each night, it can still feel like a spontaneous (almost improvisatory) experience. Araoz has built the playground, and the actors get to play.

She noted that American actors seem uniquely suited to mask work because they are highly physical and connected to their bodies. American actors “are not afraid of looking ridiculous. The French are.” (Yes, take it as a compliment.)

The masks made for this production are all custom-created just for this show by Etienne Champion, who is also a member of Collectif Masque. The sets were designed by Marta Cicionesi of Sweden, rounding out the international collaboration.

The Bricklayers hope to give this production life beyond the Athenaeum performances by touring the show to places that might not otherwise have access to this kind of theatre. Trucano is talking with St. Olaf and a theatre in Milwaukee as possible venues for a touring production, and will know in a month or so if this will be viable.

In the meantime, you can see for yourself if the concept works, as the show runs until Oct. 12 at the Athenaeum Theatre in Studio 2. Tickets are available through the Athenaeum box office (773/935-6860) or from Ticketmaster www.ticketmaster.com.