Theater review: The Old Woman in the Wood

by Joan Arbery of Renegade Bus

A confection of grotesque costumes and pantomimed action, Jeffrey Schmidt’s adaptation and direction of one of Grimm’s fairy tales, The Old Woman in the Wood --The Drama Club’s offering at the Festival of Independent Theaters (FIT) -- is more enjoyable for its marginalia than for its main narrative. Its prop design of recycled materials and its chthonic sounds using (possibly) Beth Gibbons, Goldfrapp, and Yael Naim, end up being its crowning achievements.

The play begins when a servant girl’s masters are killed by marauders. The Girl hides in a tree for comfort. A scary old lady prowling around the woods discovers the girl and tells her to “whither away” because she resents the tree paying Girl all its attention. A dove shows up to help the girl, growing bigger and brighter the more it hangs out with the girl. Finally the dove asks Girl to perform a deed of courage to save him. After she succeeds, the dove’s spell is broken, and some modicum of happiness descends on this sylvan scene.

John Flores makes the Old Woman in her fantastic mask positively cronish, shaking and twitching about with gleeful fee-fi-fo-fumness. By contrast, he animates his lithesome and spirited Dove with humor and grace as it flits across stage. John Davenport’s Tree has a kind of louche Rufus Wainwright-ness, ensconcing Girl in a seductive embrace. But as soon as he becomes human, Tree loses his intrigue to the pox of sincerity. Maryam Baig Lush’s Girl seems constantly on the verge of madness, making her endeavors a little ridiculous. When the Foley Artists gather to perform, they jinx the somber mood, but their humorous scenes are out of synch with the story’s darker, more perverse feel. These intrusions end up making the whole production feel like a hyper-commentary on itself.

Thanks to its mish-mashed make-up, The Old Woman in the Woods is truly enticing to look at and hear, emitting an underworldly atmosphere, but its narrative flotsam and jetsam fail to construct a solid frame.

The Old Woman in the Wood has two performances left, on July 31 and August 1, at the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas. For information on the Festival of Independent Theaters visit http://www.bathhousecultural.com/FIT2009.html.

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