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For its 2008-09 season opener, The Maryland Ensemble Theatre will set forth with warring monasteries, repossessed remains, and a dark comedy for the dark ages when "Incorruptible" makes its vow of hilarity on Friday.
Yes, it's monks by way of the MET. Saints preserve us.
"We've kind of fallen in love with his plays," said director Gené Fouché. "He was a musician before becoming involved with theater arts, so all of his plays are like music. That's intriguing to us. It's all about rhythm and timing."
"Incorruptible," Fouché explains, is set in Priseaux, France, circa 1250 A.D. The local monastery is in a bind. It's been 13 years since the relics of its resident Saint Foy have produced a miracle, and making matters eternally worse — a neighboring abbey has begun laying claims to the bona fide bones. With the Pope en route, drastic measures are soon devised as the holy rollers cascade from absolution to absolute calamity.
"It's a broad comedy," said Fouché. "It has a bit of vaudeville, a bit of slapstick… It's really fun to create these outrageous characters. But in doing that, the challenge is in keeping it real."
A lion's share of that realism, said Fouché, was in recreating the atmosphere of the dark ages — specifically the St. Foy reliquary where the entirety of the tale unfolds. Designed by Ensemble member Joann Lee, Fouché notes that the integral set piece was fashioned to strike a balance between reverence and revelry. Its myriad focal points, arches of all sizes, provided the gateways for farce that would make the Three Stooges proud.
"Because of the number of arches, it allowed for a lot of chase scenes and that slapsticky type of humor," said Fouché.
Among the ranks of the parodied postulants is actor and Maryland Ensemble regular Mark Barnhart as the high-strung, yet idealistic Brother Felix.
"This is one of those shows that reveals itself as it goes along," said Barnhart, striving not to give too much away. "It's been a long time since I've done a farce. But it's also got a bit of mystery to it, and it's a comedy of errors where the characters get themselves into a situation and then have to get out of it."
For his part, Barnhart is embarrassed to say he was not initially aware of the play's author.
"We were two to three weeks into rehearsal and I was like, ‘Who wrote this piece?'" he said. Recognizing Hollinger's name, Barnhart went back and reread "Red Herring," and continued to scout out other works by the playwright.
"That's part of an actor's research – you look at the playwright to see what his or her over-arching theme is. It gives you an idea of where to start and where you'll end up."
In addition to Barnhart, Ensemble members Karen Paone, Tad Janes, Julie Herber, Bette Cassatt, Rich Cole, Reiner Prochaska, and Denny Grizzle are charged with bringing life — or, better still, bringing out the dead — to this tale, which, while riddled with artistic license, is surprisingly rooted in fact.
"Although it's a silly premise — stealing the bones of a saint — it's actually based on true events," said Fouché. "Saint Foy now resides in an abbey in France. But this sort of thing was happening during medieval times, and probably even before."
The life and times of medieval clergy, too, resulted in interesting research, said Barnhart who notes he learned quite a bit about monks and the 13th century throughout production.
"Just thinking of what they had to go through. I mean, my character digs a hole at one point during the show. Back then, they didn't have metal shovels — only wood. Just imagining that — it takes place in the summer, I'm out in the sun, in a robe, with a wooden shovel digging this hole. My God, that had to have been incredible being a monk," he said. "And I don't think I want to do it."
