Philly Fringe 2016 review: Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's 'The Chairs'

Seven years later, IRC has remounted The Chairs, and it's even better.

Artistic maturity

That 2009 production felt stuffed into the irregular shape of the now-gone Society Hill Playhouse's Red Room. Lisi Stoessel's simple yet inventive set, with its seven doorways, Eiffel Tower chandelier, and dozens of unmatched chairs, is a more tidy fit in the intimate Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5, one of IRC's two home bases (the other is L'Etage Cabaret). And there's no downstage center post to work around.

More importantly, Brock — director and star of both productions — has matured artistically, and her performance in The Chairs is truly sublime. Her Old Woman — dressed (by Erica Hoelscher) in a haphazard, yellowed wedding dress, white shoes, red stockings, and white wig — is a bent-over, shuffling dynamo, conjuring fantasies with her husband (Bob Schmidt), busily setting up chairs for a huge audience coming to hear him speak in their strange deserted lighthouse. Her voice, expressions, posture, and movement are inspiredly loony and endearing, and reveal complete commitment to the role, even when she's tripping over her dress or a folding chair refuses to open.

Seven years ago, I considered her performance great, so my expectations were high; and yet, this one is a revelation. Never mind that she also directed (generally considered a risky idea for actors), designed the inventive soundscape, and runs the company. She makes a difficult role, one that's easily buried in clichés of agedness and broad absurdist strokes, and shares a genuinely funny, warm, heartbreakingly tragic character.

Schmidt's performance is similarly sincere and comically quirky. Credit Brock and their long partnership for ensuring that her performance meshes with, and doesn't overwhelm, his. The Orator, played by Thomas Dura, is a fascinating enigma. Robin Stamey's lighting provides inventive shadows and colors.

Ionesco insight

IRC again makes an Ionesco play — they've produced several of his one acts plus Victims of Duty, The Lessen, Rhinoceros, and last year's Fringe hit Exit the King — somewhat understandable, though one must engage it with an open mind and suspend expectations of a coherent plot and familiar character development. The key to their Ionesco success, I think, is a willingness to have fun and share the humor without denigrating or ignoring the play's serious aspects, and avoiding the error of stiff reverence for scripts dear to theater academics.

IRC's The Chairs reveals a couple dependent upon their shared imaginations, and an opportunity — "My husband has never been understood but at last, his hour has come" — that's both shaped from thin air and very real. It's an 80-minute delight, starting with the fun treats placed on each audience seat before the show, and much, much more.