Jo StrÓ¸mgren Kompani's "The Society' at FringeArts

Would you like the balance of world power summarized for you in 65 minutes, while you're splitting your sides laughing? If so, you should have spent an hour or so with Jo StrÓ¸mgren's Norwegian theater company and its political satire, The Society.

Director/choreographer StrÓ¸mgren and his three gifted dancer/actors provide the most lucid, insightful overview of isolationism and global conflict that you're bound to get today. Did I mention that the dialogue is spoken entirely in gibberish?

It takes the first few minutes of this wild ride to get your bearings. As you enter the theater, three men in business suits are positioned (two standing, one seated) around a massive shelf holding about 100 identical white coffee cups in a scene could have been painted by the surrealist René Magritte.

Speaking faux French

Where are they? Some office, perhaps. What are they doing? Nothing much. One sits in a chair. Another chews gum and grinds coffee. A third polishes a cup. Only when one of them sprays another in the face with a bottle of cleaning fluid do you know you'll be riding down a slippery slope.

Eventually, the men begin to speak to one another in French. What a relief "“ now we know where we are! Then we realize that it's not French they're speaking, but faux French— a fabricated language, wherein only one out of every ten words is recognizably French while the other nine are simply made up. But never mind, we go along with that.

OK"“ so we're in France, perhaps, or some conformist, insular society obsessed with coffee— drinking coffee, talking about coffee. Every once in a while, the phone rings and one of the men called Louis answers in English: " "'Allo? We're fine. We're drinking coffee. Goodbye."

Coffee vs. tea

Suddenly, a coffee cup appears to be missing from the shelf, and this orderly world is catapulted into danger. A frantic search ensues around the minimal set, and then— voilÓ ! A tea bag is discovered. Who put it there? There must be a traitor amongst them "“ who must be discovered, at any cost.

The rest of The Society deals with unraveling the mystery, with the speed and loopiness of a Monte Python scene turned surreal. Though it seems to be madness, there is clearly method to it. The Society offers a provocative parable of insularity and paranoia within a given society, as well as a power struggle between East and West with Europe in the middle"“ the West represented by the telephone calls, and the East represented by the invasion of helicopters that drop red money and sacks of peasant clothing, which the three actors don while they begin to speak in faux Chinese.

From Beirut to Jerusalem

This stylish absurdist piece of political theater spins out of control while rushing to its denouement "“ which, sadly, you may have to wait for the company's next appearance, since The Society ended its brief run on Sunday.

Since its premiere in 2008, The Society has been performed in 50 countries, including disparate cities like including Beirut, Jerusalem, Haifa, St. Petersburg and New York. Jo StrÓ¸mgren's "gibberish" has been heard and understood by people of many nations, thanks to the unique brand of humor and style that he and his gifted company have developed— an eclectic, virtuosic blend of vaudeville, slapstick, mime, and acrobatic ballet, performed with a dash of Danny Kaye. It's an international language that needs no translation

To break down cultural barriers, what better weapon than comedy?♦


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