March 16, 2010 Spring Guide » Theater

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THEATER: CAST makes it Kurt and sweet 

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click to enlarge CAST - MONKEY SEE: An early look at Monkey House
  • CAST

  • MONKEY SEE: An early look at Monkey House

Carolina Actors Studio Theatre has developed quite an affinity for the short forms in recent years. Two seasons ago, there was Neil LaBute's Autobahn, a series of sketches linked together by the presence of an automobile. Last spring, there was the memorable immersion in a profusion of Greco-Roman myths, Metamorphoses, when the Simmonses, son Robert and pere Michael, installed a pool at their 1118 Clement Ave. location. And last month, Charlotte's Zen masters of sketch comedy, Robot Johnson, made CAST the launching pad for their newest set of late-night effronteries, the inexplicably titled "It's Time to Make the Biscuits!"

Now fans of foma, granfalloons, and assorted inventions of sci-fi sage Kurt Vonnegut can rejoice. CAST is bringing a choice selection of the Welcome to the Monkey House stories to life in a world premiere adaptation, opening on April 29 and continuing through May 29. We haven't received official word on how CAST will make over their lobby, bathrooms, and bar to deliver their signature experiential brand of theater, but their Web site is warning visitors not to feed the animals.

Michael admits that he has been a Vonnegut geek since his college days. As a director and producer, Simmons has felt driven to transport the fabulist's work from page to stage. The roadblock came when he plopped a readymade adaptation in front of CAST's core team of artists as they sat down to map out their 2008-09 season. They rejected Monkey House unanimously.

Simmons concedes they had a point.

"When I read some of the adaptations," he confides, "I didn't think they actually captured the flavor of who Kurt Vonnegut really was. It just seemed like some methodology to get that story on stage at the expense of his romanticism and his satire and his pacifism and his wonderful sense of irony."

So Simmons decided to do an adaptation of his own. He has chosen seven of the two dozen stories in Vonnegut's collection, including the first four: "Harrison Bergeron," "Who Am I This Time?" "Welcome to the Monkey House," and "Long Walk to Forever."

You only have to read the opening line to understand why "Harrison Bergeron" leads off Vonnegut's visionary journeys into futuristic dystopias. But here's the entire first paragraph for your delectation:

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

Hell, when Little, Brown and Book of the Month Club collected more than 50 classics into their 1,077-page World Treasury of Science Fiction, that same story and that same paragraph were in front of the book.

Simmons' choices weren't determined by which stories would be easiest to translate to the stage. When he thought the reward would be as great as the challenge, he accepted it. As in Metamorphoses, stories will flow smoothly into each other, bookishly framed with a prologue and an epilogue. A couple of monologues are woven into the script that readers might easily skim over or forget, because Simmons felt they texturize the evening and give us insights into Vonnegut.

"And who better to tell us about Kurt Vonnegut than Kurt Vonnegut himself?" Simmons speculates. "So, rumor has it -- I can neither confirm nor deny this rumor -- that Kurt Vonnegut will actually be with us for this performance."

Now that would be a technical feat to rival any of the wonders we saw last spring in Metamorphoses!

"We had to make some angelic travel arrangements for it to happen," the director swiftly responds, almost in a whisper, "and that may even manifest itself on stage in some way. It's going to be Kurt Vonnegut. Or a Kurt Vonnegut look-alike. Or a being-alike."

So it goes.

 

More Spring Guide stuff:

• ART: de'Angelo Dia's super art

• SPORTS: Carolina Kayak Polo Club takes the plunge

• MUSIC: Spring live music picks FILM: Spring movie guide

• THEATER: CAST makes it Kurt and sweet

• PERFORMING ARTS: More spring performing art events

• ART: Fast food gets the royal treatment in Fried

• ART: More visual art events

• TV: Catching up with Bad Girl Kendra James

 

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