Tonight my Arts Editor and I stepped out and saw Underneath The Lintel, a one man play written by Glen Berger, and performed for this three show run by Pat O’Brien. It’s showing at the Zephyr Theatre in Stillwater, MN.
This is a play that addresses the eternal tension between fire and food, temporary safety versus permanent peril, playing it safe and putting it out there, to move on – or risk that sword-thrust to the belly when assisting the needy. Who suffered more, the Christ on the Cross, who, for a short eternity, bore the agony of torture and death, or the Wandering Jew, who, for not assisting Christ at his moment of need, was rewarded with eternal life – eternal restlessness, namelessness – Godlessness.
The story told by our narrator is as much about his own failure to step forward when offered the opportunity, his failure to put his own emotional self-regard at risk when a reward was dangled in front of him. Twenty years later, his failure haunts him, in the what might have beens, in his obstinate embrace of his own behavior, proud of documenting the receipt of books returned to the library – at first, it seems a joke, but near the end it’s more an element of horror, a man so wrapped up in such trivial, mundane work that, upon breaking free of it, its absence drives him to, and over, the precipice.
And so we get to travel this mad, frantic path with the narrator, first taking him to be a clown, but wondering, later, at his failure – and, by proxy, ours’.
It’s a good play, and Mr. O’Brien seems inspired in the role. It’s worth a see, if you can find time to do so this weekend.
We would’ve enjoyed the performance more if it hadn’t been for some audience members who seemed convinced they were attending a comedy, and laughed at roughly 85% of the monologue, even as the narrator moves closer and closer to dark madness. Sure, there’s some good funny lines, and not every noir work – and I do consider this to be a cousin of noir – lacks in humor. Laughter can point at the essential absurdity of our individual existence. But that doesn’t make for a comedy, and so, for us, the out of place laughter made for a tide against which Mr. O’Brien had to struggle. I can only say that he was a consummate professional, not letting the improper response provoke him.
Disclosure: One of the members of the Zephyr has been a good friend for more than 30 years.
