Jumpers a humorous workout
Wed Jan 24 2007
By Kevin Prokosh
IS there a more wearying workout than attempting to follow every taxing twist and strenuous backflip in the theatrical gymnastic display that is Tom Stoppard's Jumpers?
Count on a spike in calls to chiropractors. Stoppard makes audience members' exercise muscles rarely used in theatre to bear an unnatural amount of wit and weight.
Jumpers leaves you breathless, amused and somewhat disoriented in contemplating a unique blend of Monty Python-esque loopiness and deep philosophical questioning set against a murder investigation. As performed by an amalgam of two local troupes -- Persnickety Players and Echo Theatre -- Jumpers is more memorable for the comical highjinx than the cerebral musings about the existence of God.
The English dramatist's 1972, full-length followup to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an ambitious undertaking for any theatre but for a modest collective at StoppardFest it requires some deft manoeuvres of its own. With no room on the crowded Ellice Theatre stage for a team of acrobatic-philosophers to bounce around on, co-directors Michelle Boulet and Carolyn Gray screen a short film that precedes the live action for the next two hours.
It's a wild scene-setter as we are introduced to Dorothy Moore (Charlene Van Buekenhout), once the first lady of the musical stage and now unable to sing due to a nervous breakdown triggered by a moon landing. She struggles with her lyrics as she loses the spotlight to the jumpers. The boisterous party, which features a secretary (Boulet) being wheeled around on a table with dwindling pieces of clothing, ends badly when one of the acrobats (Gord Tanner) is shot and killed.
Cut to the stage, where Dorothy is struggling to hide the dead body in her boudoir while her middle-aged husband George (Kevin Klassen), a second-rate moral philosophy professor, is dictating a speech for a major lecture. While he pursues high-falutin' theological truths he misses the true meaning of daily visits paid to his wife by Archie Jumper (Graham Ashmore), the chairman of his university's philosophy department.
The plot races off in all directions, more at the pace of George's pet hare Thumper than his tortoise Pat. What makes most sense is Jumpers as a story of a collapsing marriage and George's retreat from life into the solitude of theory. He can't answer the cries for help from Dorothy -- who he calls Dotty -- and prattles on and on.
Klassen conquers some of Stoppard's most dense monologues and more impressively appears to understand what he's talking about.
Sorely, that isn't the case for many in the audience who perk up with the comic prospects that come with the arrival of the smooth-talking dandy Archie, wonderfully performed by Ashmore, or the show biz-obsessed Inspector Bones, also well-acted by Rob McLaughlin.
Van Buekenhout earns high marks for depicting Dorothy's quivering fragility through equal parts flirty sexuality and crippling doubt.
Stoppard succeeds in appealing to the mind and the funny bone in Jumpers but ultimately misses the heart.
kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca
Theatre review
Jumpers
Persnickety Players & Echo Theatre
To Feb. 2
Tickets: $12
3 1/2 stars out of five
I'd love everyone local to come on out and check it out
Posted by Arieanna at 6:00 AM
