Somewhat Recommended[rating=2] The ringmaster declaims at the beginning of the play that what we are about to see is a boring text being masked with music and spectacle. He takes a perverse sort of pride in this. The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey is a 1959 absurdist satire by Polish dramatist Sławomir Mrożek, and one of his earlier works. The story of a family suddenly beset by a bizarre crisis and utterly unsupported by institutions, it’s a lean seventy-minute howl of frustration. Regular Trap Door director Nicole Wiesner devises an array of circus-themed movements to carry the show along, presenting many striking visuals and humorous moments.
Peter Ohey (Dennis Bisto) is a boring, ordinary man, living in a seemingly normal house where he ignores his wife and children. When they inform him that there is a tiger in the bathroom, he is befuddled, but a government bureaucrat determines, and the science advisor agrees, that his bathtub pipes are actually an ideal environment for a tiger to occupy in gaseous form. The creature is content to bask but likely to emerge ready to hunt should anyone take a bath. Moving is out of the question; it is vital to science to understand the effect of a tiger attack on the human body, and delightful to general society to observe a family living under stress. Furthermore, the situation is under control as long as nobody uses that bathroom, but more agencies get involved and resolve that there would also be benefits to holding a tiger hunt. Serving as bait is naturally Mr. Ohey’s responsibility. In the meantime, he must pay the tiger tax.
Wiesner’s cast accomplish some very physical performances over the course of the play. If Trap Door’s space does not allow for full acrobatics, it does at least permit some interesting compositions, original music by Danny Rockett, and use of fanciful props and costumes designed by Rachel M. Sypniewski. The sticking point is whether this is all worth it for Mrożek’s satire. Peter Ohey is a very passive figure who tolerates a great deal of abuse even if he has a sour attitude about it, and most of the time he’s just confused. The officials are all represented as entirely idiotic and uncompassionate (compare how even the movie Don’t Look Up presented actual scientists and government science administrators as being genuinely dedicated to their responsibilities), and they also seem determined to usurp Ohey’s relationship with his family in a subplot that might have benefited from more focus.
Of course, a phase-shifting tiger actually is a rather difficult problem to solve, and there is something to the sly ringmaster’s (Matty Robinson) advice that Ohey should accept that the world doesn’t really work the way he thought it did. Mrożek was also prescient in his concept that a society undergoing a traumatic transition can build a cultural phenomenon out of laughing at people who live with a tiger. This reviewer was frustrated that the production’s pacing didn’t allow it to develop its own weight, and the actors’ face coverings force them to shout all their lines at the same volume, but it is possible that people who have more of a feel for script’s original circumstances and history will get more out of it. Trap Door produces Mrożek and his contemporaries often; people with an interest in this era may still be glad for an opportunity to see one of the less frequently staged plays get its moment.
The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey will continue at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W Cortland Ave, Chicago, thru February 26, 2021, at the following times:
Thursdays: 8:00 pm
Fridays: 8:00 pm
Saturdays: 8:00 pm
Running time is seventy minutes with no intermission.
Tickets are $25 with 2 for 1 admission on Thursdays. Visit Trap Door Theatre or call 773-384-0494 or email boxofficetrapdoor@gmail.com
To see what others are saying, go to Theatre in Chicago and click “The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey.”
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