Review: OUT AT SEA at Theater Grottesco

Anyone remember the 1943 Warner Brothers Cartoon Wackiki Wabbit?  It tells the story of two men trapped - first on a raft and then a deserted island. They encounter Bugs Bunny and try desperately to catch and eat him, only to be thwarted and left alone on the island where they start to hallucinate that the other man is a hamburger or a hot dog.

This was the first thing that popped into my mind while watching Theater Grottesco’s latest production, Out At Sea. It begins (and ends) in a small raft inhabited by three men, referred to only as Thin (John Flax), Medium (Kalob Martinez) and Fat (Koppany Pusztai). The first several minutes are set in silence, as each day passes and Thin scans the horizon for land. The lighting and chorography works together seamlessly to show the passage of time, as the audience realizes that the men have been castaways for at least 7 or 8 days since the play began.

By this time, the men are out of food and out of ideas for how to get anything to eat, so they decide that one of them will need to be eaten by the other two. The rest of the play is the three of them deciding who should make the ultimate sacrifice, as each man pleads their case as to why it shouldn’t be him. They try a variety of tactics – a vote, a sob story contest – to determine who will be the next meal.

In any trio, there is always the opportunity for triangulation, where two members gang up on or ostracize the third, and this play is no exception. Fat and Thin decide that Medium is the best candidate for their meal; they take turns trying to convince Medium that he needs to stop being selfish and give into their decision.

Does Medium give in? Do Thin and Fat get a shot at beating starvation? You need to see the play to find out.

All three men do a good job of telegraphing their increasingly desperate situation. The play, while absurdist, makes strong statements on hierarchy, caste and power – Mrozek wrote the play as a statement on the situation in his native Poland, which was falling to communism. Much of his work was banned in Poland due to his strong stance on the state of the country.

This marks the first time that Theater Grottesco has worked with a scripted play; the company usually starts with the physical style and works from there. In the Artistic Director’s notes, Flax states “Out At Sea required the opposite (from our usual model),. Fortunately, this is a beautifully sparse script…We have found moments for the chorus work we developed in Different (2019). We’ve also adapted found object puppetry to help tell the story.”

The company’s history with improv and clowning lends itself beautifully to this work; kudos to the directing team of Danielle Reddick, Brenna O’Brien, Apollo Garcia and the Grottesco Ensemble in finding ways to merge the company’s style with the script.

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