Another review

Here is an absorbing, involving and thoroughly entertaining one-man show. At times very funny, at times extremely dramatic and at times quite touching, it takes the audience through a range of emotions in rapid succession.

Storyline: At the height of World War II, the sole remaining actor from a French theater troupe that had been performing The Arabian Nights manages to escape from a Nazi train taking him to "somewhere in Poland." He appears before a group of French gendarmes (presumably from the collaborationist Vichy regime) and tries to convince them that his deportation is a mistake since the material he and his colleagues perform is in no way subversive. To prove it he performs some of the stories, taking all the parts himself.

The play requires a bravura performance to keep the focus on the actor and not on the somewhat thin set up and resolution. Here it gets just that in the work of Ron Campbell who starred in the play’s premiere production in California in 1993 and who has toured with it in the US and abroad, winning awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and the London (Ontario) Fringe Festival.

Campbell throws himself into no fewer than 38 roles in ninety minutes. Each role is a distinct physical presence, from hunchback to princess to old man to genie. Each has characteristic postures, mannerisms, expressions and vocal inflections. They come fast and furious and Carol Wolf’s script gives him plenty of opportunities to display his athletic as well as artistic ability.

Under the direction of Jessica Kubzansky, who staged the premiere as well as this production, Campbell seems to know just when to draw attention to the display of technique and when to shift the emphasis to the material. So many one-man shows turn out to be about the performer, not the material. Whether it is to Campbell’s credit or Kubzansky’s, this show avoids the excesses that so often afflict bravura pieces.

James Kronzer has provided a superb set for the piece. It is a back room in the train depot with the lights of the platform dimly visible through a wall of dingy windows. Adam Magazine’s lighting shifts moods to subtly support Campbell’s changes in character and pace. Toni Angelini’s sound design matches the visual with an aural reality without drawing too much attention to itself.

Written by Carol Wolf. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Design: James Kronzer (set) Adam Magazine (lights) Toni Angelini (sound.) Cast: Ron Campbell.