The Bald Soprano
Eugène Ionesco’s "The Bald Soprano," that mischievous masterpiece of the Theater of the Absurd, is a play in which the ordinary becomes extraordinary, conversation becomes combat, and the most reassuring conventions of civilized behavior are gradually revealed to be elaborate disguises for the bewildering emptiness beneath them. In its splendid revival by the Resident Acting Company at the Frank Shiner Theater at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, this mid-century assault on the logic of everyday life emerges as both an uproarious theatrical entertainment and a surprisingly penetrating examination of humanity’s seemingly inexhaustible capacity to speak without communicating. Directed by Bradford Cover with a precision that never smothers the madness, the production makes an exceptionally persuasive case for Ionesco’s enduring genius. The six-member ensemble, several of whose performers have a history with the play stretching back to the Pearl Theatre Company’s 2011 staging, approaches the material with the confidence of artists who understand that the most effective way to perform nonsense is to believe in every syllable of it. [more]