American Players Theatre’s “The Chairs,”/Photo: American Players Theatre
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Described by playwright Eugène Ionesco as a “a tragic farce,” “The Chairs” is a 1952 absurdist play about a couple grappling with nothingness—the end of their lives, the end of the world and a stage full of empty chairs.
And yet, it’s so funny. The philosophy is bleak, but the feeling is vaudeville, circus and cabaret. American Players Theatre veterans James Ridge and Colleen Madden deliver astounding performances as Old Man and Old Woman—hilarious, energetic and touching. It’s a brilliant tight-rope act—Ridge and Madden carry the audience through ninety-five minutes of absurdity and complex wordplay without missing a step.
Directed by Vanessa Stalling, former associate artistic director of Chicago’s Redmoon Theatre, “The Chairs” opens with the sounds of the sea. The lights come up on a few overturned chairs, a battered trunk, a dim lightbulb on a stand and a backdrop of raggedy curtains in dirty seafoam green (Courtney O’Neill designed the set and Ethan Korvne did the sound).
The Old Woman emerges in a mish-mash of clothing—an elegant, green 1920s-style drop-waist gown with a plaid underskirt, red stockings and dirty white shoes (costume design by Robert Morgan). She wears clown makeup and a skull cap over wispy white hair. She pulls a brown wig out of the trunk and puts it on, miming flirtatious poses. Then she sees the Old Man, in a shabby suit with oversized buttons, standing on an unseen balcony among the curtains, looking at the sea. She warns him that he might fall.We learn the outlines of their relationship—they’ve been together seventy-five years, maybe more. They love each other, contradict each other and nag at each other. Time doesn’t matter, except that it’s running out. “Time has raced by like a train, engraving its lines on our skin,” the Old Man muses. The Old Woman rebukes him repeatedly for not making more of himself—he could have been master of anything, but is only a janitor, master of the mop.
American Players Theatre’s “The Chairs,” with James Ridge and Colleen Madden/Photo: American Players Theatre
But he has a plan—he has hired an orator to deliver a message to the world. “If only I could put things into inevitable-sounding words,” he says, trusting the orator (played with fine dignity by Nate Burger) to do the job. The Old Man has invited everybody to hear the message: the pope and the papers, a soldier, a long-lost lover, the emperor… The guests start to arrive. They are invisible to us, but the Old Man and the Old Woman flatter them, insult them, flirt with them and bring in chairs.
The pace of the play increases frantically, as the doorbell keeps ringing and more invisible guests arrive and need places to sit down.
I tried to follow the sense of all this for a while, led on by Ridge and Madden’s mesmerizing charm, but life doesn’t make sense in the play’s view. The couple is creating their own nonsense reality, and it’s not a bad one. There is love and enthusiasm, along with the human goal of leaving a legacy. They are performing for us and for each other. Life is portrayed here as an attempt to put on a show, full of confetti and funny speeches, signifying nothing.
American Players Theatre, which won a regional Tony award this spring, hasn’t done an Ionesco play since “Exit the King” in 2018. Tickets for “The Chairs” are limited, with many shows already sold out into September, so don’t wait to try to see this stunning and unique production.
“The Chairs” at American Players Theatre, 5950 Golf Course Road, Spring Green, Wisconsin, through September 27. Tickets available at americanplayers.org.
