An Evening with Brecht

In the course of this brief trot into the world of Brecht, the Caravan Theater Company makes some well-meaning attempts to find an appropriate mood. The lines of the stage and of the portable sets are simple and clean. The actors present the material briskly and without complication. In the first part of the evening excerpts from various plays and poems are recited by members of the company. The bulk of the evening is devoted to a shortened version of Man is Man, the story of how a timid Indian is transformed into the terror of the British Colonial Army.

The opening of this production last Saturday night was well attended and well received. The company goes about its business enthusiastically and with a disarming lack of pretension. There were moments of good acting and plenty of clowning throughout. Beyond these generalizations, however, I can find nothing to recommend the production. The director, who apparently does not believe in controlling his company, has allowed it to fabricate from the script a bundle of whimsical gestures. The voices, like the costumes, are loud, strident, and oblivious to the world around them. People rush into roles and lines often without the slightest appreciation of what the playwright is trying to convey.

There may be imagination in this, but it is a motley one of nine actors and actresses dancing to nine different drums. In the first part, when usually only one person performs at a time, the absence of discipline is not so disatrous. But during Man and Man, when there are always several actors together, the weaknesses of the production emerge. Each tries to improvise his or her own character, gaily trooping along while haphazzardly bumping into others. A tape recorder blares out occasionally. While some may react to it, half the others may be too distracted by their own self-in-venting to pay attention.

The Caravan Theater is allegedly an experimental enterprise, but Director Edelson's only experiment in this production is pushing nine actors onto the stage and having them try to act without any critical guidance.