Things Aren’t So Grimm at Company One

by Victoria Petrosino on July 19, 2010

Despite the title, most of the remixed and re-imagined fairy-tales of Company One’s latest production, , are clever and comedic. The world premier play offers 7 original plays by Boston playwrights, including work by Gregory Maquire (of Wicked fame). The stories offer modern and satirical revisits to the Bothers’ Grimm classics: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, Clever Else, White Bride and the Black One, Stories About Snakes, Little Red Cap, and Frog King.

The scenery is sparse and offers just glimpses of each play, a strong reference to the slivers of the original story that remain in each reworked piece. A gingerbread cottage sags in the corner of the stage, overshadowed by clusters of daisies. The daisies hang, larger than life, from the ceiling, with grocery bags caught chillingly in their petals. The bare setting allows the audience to focus on the talented cast, who are simultaneously able to remind the audience of their character’s role in the original fairytale, as well as craft entirely new characters in a foreign setting.

Lonnie McAdoo shines in both Cry Baby Jones and Stories about Snakes. His stunningly deep baritone resonates whether he is hissing out the promises of a snake or self-satirizing the life of an overly theatrical actor. His eyes widen and sparkle and completely engage the audience in his character.

The effect of McAdoo’s voice on his audience is mocked in Cry Baby Jones. His character, King Tea, is hailed as the lead actor in Plastic-town. When he develops a rash and needs the help of Cry Baby Jones, he sends his daughter Princess with a Ziploc bag bedazzled with gold glitter to trade for Jones’s rash remedy. The bag apparently contains the King’s most gripping monologue. While Cry Baby Jones as a whole is the most embellished of plays in Grimm, McAdoo’s monologue is dramatic and insightful, and in it’s own way heartbreakingly delivered. He turns an exaggerated fairytale about hair weaves and diaper rash into the struggle of a boy becoming a man.

Mollie Kimmerling, as Nicole in Thanksgiving, also crafts one of the more memorable performances of the night. She stars as one of three Southie moms waiting for her daughter to finish dance class. She has the look of an ex-cheerleader, with her high ponytail and stretchy jeans, and with her ankle resting on her knee she recounts the moment when she thought her life could be different than what everyone expected of her. And though the audience laughs along with her as she confesses to shopping at Market Basket for the good deals and muses about how Friendly’s really makes their watermelon rolls, the audience also sees her sadness and her desperation to prove that she can do better.

Also notable about Kimmerling is her ability to distance her characters. She is unrecognizable as a ditzy news reporter in Cry Baby Jones and a Catholic schoolgirl in The White Bride and the Black Bride.

The seven stories themselves are amusing in their different takes on the classic stories. Thanksgiving and The White Bride, for example, uses ultra realistic characters and settings to discuss racism and financial hardship. Half Handsome and Regrettable and The Seven Stage a Comeback are continuations of two of the most recognizable fairytales, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White. They offer insights on where the gingerbread witch wound up hundreds of years later and how the dwarfs cope with the loss of Snow White.

The most disturbing of the revisits is John Juntz’s Red. A blindfolded girl (Becca Lewis) dressed in red lingerie and high-heels stumbles onto a velvet swing in the middle of the stage. A man with a knife (Raymond Ramirez) watches her, using his switchblade to cut fleshy chunks from an apple. Their relationship evolves dramatically throughout the scene, from a scared girl sobbing and pleading with her captor, to a confident woman strutting in her pumps, recanting the story of being followed by a stalker. By the end, Red holds the power, the knife dangerously near the man’s neck. The expertly evolving plotline works perfectly for a fairytale that ends just as often with Little Red Riding Hood being eaten as with her being saved.

runs from July 16th to August 14th, with evening performances Wednesday through Saturday and a matinée on Sunday. Tickets are $15-$38, with $20 rush tickets available for all shows. Performed by Company One at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts (527 Tremont Street, South End).

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