
The Enchanted
by Jean Giraudoux, translated by Maurice Valency
The Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5
February 7 – March 5, 2017
Directed by Tina Brock
Act I: A clearing in the woods outside a small
provincial town in France. Late afternoon.
Act II: The same. A few weeks later.
Act III: Isabel’s room in the town
Running time is approximately 105 minutes without an intermission.

Puppet Direction
Robert Ian Cutler
Costume and Set Design
Erica Hoelscher
Lighting Design
Peter Whinnery
Sound Design
Tina Brock
Puppet Design and Execution
Mark Williams
Technical Director
Scott Cassidy
Stage Manager
Chris Kubat
Assistant Costume Designer
Jessica Barksdale
Scenic Painter
Kate Coots
Ways and Means Coordinator
Bob Schmidt
Photoshop Magic
Bill Brock
Photography
Johanna Austin / AustinArt.org
Cover Art
“I Will Give You This Magic Herb” by John Bauer (1913)
Reviews
The Enchanted (2017)
The Enchanted
“...Tina Brock directs with a keen eye also for Giraudoux’s preposterous humor and playful irreality...she ingeniously enhances the absurdities of his story…Jane Moore is a force of nature...thoroughly amusing ensemble, laugh-out-loud...magical and meaningful, offering a provocative look at nature and the supernatural...”
--by Debra Miller, DC Metro Theater Arts
The Enchanted (2017)
The Enchanted: Into the Woods
“...I'm always excited to see an Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC) production, because Tina Brock's company -- dedicated to absurdist theater -- guarantees I'll experience a play I've never seen before, or one freshly staged in their inspired style...balance locks in this play's success, and IRC's as well...The Enchanted is often funny, (though) Brock never lets the laughs overwhelm the story and its existential issues, or vice versa. Instead of choosing one over the other, IRC embraces both; together, they're greater than the sum of their parts…”
--by Mark Cofta, The Broad Street Review
The Enchanted (2017)
THE ENCHANTED (IRC): a great revival speaks to our times
“...Tina Brock’s direction is faithful to the original, and her use of Muppet-like puppets cast as the little girls is a refreshing, burlesque expedient. The play was scheduled well before the nation awoke to see a foul-mouthed casino man in the Oval Office, but the choice of the play is eerily prophetic in hindsight…”
--by Lev Feigin, Phindie
The Enchanted (2017)
THEATER REVIEW: In The Enchanted, Life and Death in Wonderland
Idiopathic Ridiculopathy’s little gem of a show has something profound to offer.
“...Idiopathic Ridiculopathy’s little gem of a show has something profound to offer...Luckily for Philadelphia, we have the perfect tour guide in director Tina Brock—she and her company, the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, have made something of a specialty of his work. Her delightful realization of The Enchanted—a tricky play even by Giraudoux standards—may be the surprise hit of the Philly theater season...I can’t imagine a production that makes it more enjoyable and accessible. This little gem of a show has something profound to offer…”
--by David Fox, Philadelphia Magazine
The Enchanted (2017)
Mark Cofta’s February Theater Picks: Lightning Rod Special returns; Chekhov never left
“...Shows by Tina Brock's Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium are always must-sees, because the absurdist specialists consistently present fascinating rarities. The Enchanted (February 7 - March 5) — a regional premiere, though written in 1933 — is Jean Giraudoux's magical meditation on life and death…”
--Broad Street Review
The Enchanted (2017)
Director's Notes
One of the joys of directing the plays of Eugene Ionesco is the challenge he puts forward to the director, captured through this favorite quote: “I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragoon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least.”
When we began rehearsal for the reimagined 2020 Bald Soprano, the cast read-through quickly revealed the necessity of drastically rethinking the 2017 production. Our relationship to language – how we use, interpret and value it, has changed more dramatically in the last 3 years than in any other point in time I can remember. The words “truth” and “absurd” once appeared to carry a value that ten people could come close to agreeing on. These same words take on a whole new life as we worked with them in rehearsal. We mulled over how, despite having learned these lines in 2017, the experience was so different for each of us internally, as if we were learning an entirely different new play.
One stage direction in The Bald Soprano captures the existential state of being, not only for Mrs. Smith, but for this director and for many people I know: “… she falls on her knees sobbing or else she does not do this.” I alternate these responses multiple times in any given day.
We are hugely thankful to Victor Keen and Jeanne Ruddy for allowing the IRC to rehearse and perform in this inspiring space and for their generous hospitality. The outsider art within these walls radiates electricity, passion and pain, great inspiration to be surrounded by when creating. I believe Ionesco would approve of his work unfolding within the Gallery as the stage setting. This is our nod to “bringing the tortoise on stage.”
As well, many thanks to these funny, lovely, constantly surprising cast members, who I have the pleasure of working alongside. They directed this show. If laughter is a remedy for turbulent times, we certainly enjoyed heavy doses of this medicine in rehearsal, working through The Bald Soprano, which Ionesco wrote, believing it was a tragedy.
Tina Brock
Producing Artistic Director
The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy
Tina Brock, Producing Artistic Director
DC Metro Theater Arts
The Enchanted
by Debra Miller
February 10, 2017
A colorful clearing outside a provincial French village is visited by the spirit of a murderer who enthralls Isabel, an innocent young schoolteacher obsessed with the enigma of death. Aided by the wise local Doctor, opposed by the hard-nosed Government Inspector, and courted by a handsome enamored Supervisor, will she forsake the supernatural, succumb to love and joy in the natural world, and be happy just to be alive? A rarely-performed gem of theatrical fantasy, The Enchanted — Maurice Valency’s 1950 English translation of Jean Giraudoux’s Intermezzo of 1933 — gets its regional premiere from Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, in an intimate production that ponders the big questions of life, death, and love with whimsical charm and preternatural insight.
Though the playwright has often been classified as the literary equivalent of an Impressionist painter for his luminous style, poetic language, and respect for nature, Tina Brock, dedicated to Absurdist Theater, directs with a keen eye also for Giraudoux’s preposterous humor and playful irreality, in his alluring exploration of the incomprehensible riddles of our existence. She ingeniously enhances the absurdities of his story by employing cross-gender casting and animated puppetry for several of the roles, while her adroit cast revels in their inexplicable pronouncements and hilarious jibes at the illogic of government and politics, religion and philosophy, science and technology, and social norms.
Anna Lou Hearn captures the purity of Isabel, who defends her unorthodox instruction of her students (“I can only teach what I believe”), then waivers between her attraction to The Ghost (Daniel Barland), who could explain the secrets of death, and The Supervisor (John D’Alonzo), who would keep her earthbound. The outstanding Jane Moore is a force of nature as The Doctor, uncanny and intuitive in her wisdom, while David Stanger as the imperious Inspector and Melissa Amilani as the ineffectual mustachioed Mayor are ever-flawless in their vocal and physical characterizations. Rounding out the thoroughly amusing ensemble are Bob Schmidt and Tomas Dura — an absolute howl, in full drag, as the chattering sisters Armande and Leonide Mangebois, with laugh-out-loud deliveries of the voices and mannerisms of the small-town gossips.
Vibrant Muppet-style puppets, created by Mark Williams, directed by Robert Ian Cutler, and operated by Margaret McKiven, Candra Kennedy, and Barland (assisted by Schmidt and Dura as the Executioners), effectively represent the youthful zeal and instinctual knowledge of Isabel’s students, with high-pitched juvenile speech patterns and spot-on gesticulations that compensate for their lack of changeable facial expressions. Brock harmonizes the performances of the actors with those of the puppets by incorporating precise readily-legible expressive gestures (at which Stanger is a true master) that emphasize their characters’ lines and define their temperaments.
Erica Hoelscher creates a dreamlike visual design, with a full palette that contrasts the soft tones of blue-green trees and leaves, shimmering brown rocks, and straw-colored stalks of foliage with the saturated red of an Oriental carpet, brightly painted stones of a man-made wall, and historicizing costumes ranging from black and white to vivid hues and patterns that are in keeping with the figures’ occupations and personalities. An evocative lighting design by Peter Whinnery and soundscape by Brock further enrich the show’s beguiling mood.
IRC’s production of The Enchanted is both magical and meaningful, offering a provocative look at nature and the supernatural, fact and superstition, education and wisdom, and what is normal or abnormal, and well-representing the “sheer poetry” of Giraudoux’s affecting vision.
Running Time: Approximately One hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission.
The Broad Street Review
The Enchanted: Into the Woods
by Mark Cofta
February 14, 2017
I'm always excited to see an Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (IRC) production, because Tina Brock's company -- dedicated to absurdist theater -- guarantees I'll experience a play I've never seen before, or one freshly staged in their inspired style.
Isabel’s sixth-grade class, with puppets designed by Mark Williams. (Photo by Johanna Austin at AustinArt)
IRC's 11th season continues with Jean Giraudoux's The Enchanted, the French writer's 1933 romantic drama. In a fable-like setting with a simple story, it explores vast issues about the human spirit.
An inspector calls
In the forest outside a small provincial town, the Mayor (Melissa Amilani) and the Doctor (Jane Moore) meet the Inspector (David Stanger), a government official sent to investigate a potential haunting. The Inspector is concerned because society seems out of order. For example, the local millionaire didn't win the lottery as usual. "It's no longer acceptable to be unhappy," he discovers. "Fortune is displaying some intelligence."
The Inspector loudly denies the ghost's existence, but detects "termites in the social structure," identifying substitute teacher Isabel (Anna Lou Hearn) as the cause. He accuses her of teaching young girls "the ways to happiness," which "misleads them as to the nature of life." Science, he explains, sucks the magic out of life, and drudgery is nature's way.
The play remains solidly against the Inspector, not just because of Stanger's fittingly obnoxious and overbearing performance (any resemblance to modern politicians is, of course, accidental), but also because the world Brock assembles around them is so exquisitely magical. Isabel's students are played by Muppet-like puppets, designed by Mark Williams, adorably manipulated and voiced by Daniel Barland, Margaret McKiven, and Candra Kennedy. Bob Schmidt and Tomas Dura play the town's busybody Mangebois sisters in bright dresses.
Set designer Erica Hoelscher again transforms the small Walnut Street Theatre's Studio 5, making the floor and walls a lush green, defined with abstract trees and leaves as well as a colorful central wall behind which the puppets (there are more for other roles) perform. An Oriental rug center stage, incongruously but perfectly, completes the set. Hoelscher also designed the colorful costumes, which also help give The Enchanted a fairy-tale look that suits the cast's bright performances.
The design work -- which also includes Peter Whinnery's bold, mysterious lighting and Brock's lush sound design, using music from Danny Elfman's Edward Scissorhands and other film fantasies -- helps us believe. However, the Doctor cautions that "Nature is hatching a surprise for us," and the story's twists defy easy explanation or categorization. The town, and the audience, are immersed in a mysterious tension caused by "a vibrating endlessly between two falsehoods."
Plus a love story
The Enchanted climaxes with a complicated romantic triangle. Isabel loves the Supervisor (John D'Alonzo) and the Ghost (Daniel Barland), and each makes a tantalizing offer. Their complex, sincere performances, particularly given the play's fantasy moorings, are well calibrated for a special universe where reality and fantasy merge, as are all the characters around them.
Balance locks in this play's success, and IRC's as well. While The Enchanted is often funny, Brock never lets the laughs overwhelm the story and its existential issues, or vice versa. Instead of choosing one over the other, IRC embraces both; together, they're greater than the sum of their parts.
Phindie
THE ENCHANTED (IRC): a great revival speaks to our times
by Lev Feigin
February 10, 2017
This month, Philly’s favorite absurdist company Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium revives Jean Giraudoux’s THE ENCHANTED (1933) at the Walnut Street Theatre.
An atmospheric satire braided with a midsummer-night’s-dream fable, the play is about a charming young woman Isabel (played with pep and conviction by Anna Lou Hearn) enamored with a ghost whose free-spirited poltergeist shakes up bourgeois decorum of a sleepy French town. The town is topsy-turvy and all is out of joint—at least in the eyes of the town’s notables like the Mayor (given proper dose of jaundice by Melissa Amilani) and the Supervisor of Weights and Measures (John D’Alonzo).
“In the community it is no longer respectable to be unhappy,” complains the Doctor (the magisterial Jane Moore) to the bombast Inspector (performed to perfection by David Stanger) sent by the government to establish order. Women leave their husbands for more attractive men. Dogs no longer fawn on abusive owners. Mistreated children run away from home and – worse! – the lottery no longer goes to the town’s millionaire and is won by the poor. The dreamy, idealistic Isabel must choose between the ethereal love of a Ghost (Daniel Barland) promising immortal knowledge and the life-affirming ardor of the Supervisor for whom death is no more than “the next step after pension.”
Tina Brock’s direction is faithful to the original, and her use of Muppet-like puppets cast as the little girls is a refreshing, burlesque expedient. The play was scheduled well before the nation awoke to see a foul-mouthed casino man in the Oval Office, but the choice of the play is eerily prophetic in hindsight. When the Inspector exorcises the ghosts by spewing hate on the otherworldly aliens and undesirables—who, if allowed to stay, “would be natives of France, and therefore entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens, including the right to vote”—he promises to bar their entry “under the penalties provided for cases of illegal immigration.” Fortunately, there is love, magic and Muppets to save the day from the Inspector’s imminent “established democracy”.
[Walnut Street Theatre, Studio 5, 825 Walnut Street] February 7–March 5, 2017; idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org.
Philadelphia Magazine
THEATER REVIEW: In The Enchanted, Life and Death in Wonderland
Idiopathic Ridiculopathy’s little gem of a show has something profound to offer.
by David Fox
February 16, 2017
What is it about the French? I think of myself as a reasonably educated, intelligent person—in most rooms, I can hold my own. But put me next to a Parisian raconteur, and I’m a country bumpkin. The French are so sophisticated, nuanced, ironic—nowhere more so than in their intellectual writing, where I often wonder if I’m misreading all the clues.
Theatrically speaking, this applies especially to Jean Giraudoux, whose elegant, elliptical plays are (to me, at least) tonally and thematically ambiguous. Luckily for Philadelphia, we have the perfect tour guide in director Tina Brock—she and her company, the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, have made something of a specialty of his work. Her delightful realization of The Enchanted—a tricky play even by Giraudoux standards—may be the surprise hit of the Philly theater season.
What’s it about, you ask? Well, fasten your seatbelts. The Enchanted is a comedy/drama/satire; it’s a ghost story-love story-crime story-fable-moral parable. It takes place someplace, sometime—maybe now, maybe in the 19th Century, but it also feels sort of medieval. There’s a lovely young woman who is torn in two directions—literally, between life and death. And in this production, also puppets—mostly as the village children, and very cute!
We’re probably on safer ground talking about a theme. What the hell, I’ll risk it and put one forward: Our world is dominated by successful professional people—businessmen, politicians, and especially bureaucrats—who inevitably lose all sense of imagination and creativity. It is only the young, the very old, and few precious rebels who can truly dwell in possibility (and even for them, it requires supernatural help).
Speaking of cute, too much whimsy is a common pitfall in putting Giraudoux on the stage—but while Brock and company load on the charm, they always anchor it in something deeper. Choices here are bold—a visually delightful world that evokes Alice in Wonderland. Several clever cross-dressed performances (Tomas Dura and Bob Schmidt make an uncommonly convincing pair of town biddies) complement the absurdist tone, and there’s and enough stage illusion to keep even children entertained. The Enchanted is not really a kid show, but I could imagine it would be spellbinding to those who particularly enjoy storytelling.
For the adults, there is deliciously stylized acting from a strong company—my particular favorites include Melissa Amilani as the pompous mayor (shades of the Mad Hatter), Daniel Barland as an appealing and very tangible ghost (he looks like he could be playing football between hauntings), and the mesmerizing, exquisite Jane Moore as the town doctor. And kudos to the puppeteers, who make the ensemble come to life.
Now and again, I detected sections in the text that suggested Brock’s reading of the play is rather anarchic. It may be that The Enchanted really calls for something darker and more serious. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a production that makes it more enjoyable and accessible. This little gem of a show has something profound to offer.
The Enchanted plays through March 5. For more information, visit the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium website.
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2017/02/16/theater-review-in-the-enchanted-life-and-death-in-wonderland/#Y1lUEofDSC0dBx5U.99
Broad Street Review
Mark Cofta’s February Theater Picks: Lightning Rod Special returns; Chekhov never left
February 2, 2017
Some of February's new plays run only one weekend, starting with The Big (February 3 - 5), a new farce written, directed by, and starring Quintessence Theatre Group member Lee Cortopassi, who was inspired by noir like Miller's Crossing and comedy like Wet Hot American Summer.
Two brief runs at FringeArts are notable premieres: Sans Everything (February 9 - 11) is a futuristic adventure by Lighting Rod Special, creators of the Fringe hit Underground Railroad Game, and Strange Attractor, imagining Shakespeare's As You Like It on a far-future space cruise ship. A Ride on the Irish Cream (February 16 - 18) is a new musical from New York cabaret icon Erin Markey, about a forbidden sexual awakening.
Homegrown playwrights
Delaware playwright David Robson's timely farce, After Birth of a Nation (February 10 - 18), imagines the events that may or may not have occurred when the White House hosted its first film, the KKK-glorifying epic Birth of a Nation, in 1915. City Theater Company produces the premiere in Wilmington, DE.
Azuka Theatre Company resident playwright Doug Williams' new play Shitheads (February 22 - March 12) is set in a lower Manhattan bike shop, where a new manager played by Akeem Davis tries to save the business. Azuka also premiered Williams' Moon Cave, and the playwrights’ collective Orbiter 3 produced his Breathe Smoke.
Seldom-seen classics
Shows by Tina Brock's Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium are always must-sees, because the absurdist specialists consistently present fascinating rarities. The Enchanted (February 7 - March 5) — a regional premiere, though written in 1933 — is Jean Giraudoux's magical meditation on life and death.
Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (February 15 - March 12) may be best known as the play that inspired the musical Hello, Dolly! But this delightful romantic farce by the author of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth is much more than a Broadway musical without the music, especially in director Abigail Adams' capable hands at People's Light.
EgoPo Classic Theatre continues its Russian Masters season with Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (February 1 - 19), directed with a Symbolist approach by Lane Savadove, featuring Melanie Julian and Anna Zaida Szapiro. Hedgerow Theatre revives Uncle Vanya (February 9 - March 5) in Annie Baker's new translation (here’s my review of her John, running through February 26 at the Arden). Hedgerow’s Uncle Vanya is directed by Kittson O'Neill, and stars Jennifer Summerfield, Penelope Reed, and Jared Reed.