30th Play - The Inseparables by TJ Young

I believe that this was another recommendation from a colleague … And I LOVED the idea of a play about actors putting on a play - always fun for theatre folx!

Summary: "The North American Unified Theatre Collaborators of the West really want to put on a show. Like, really bad. Under the leadership of their founder and director, this group of actors has decided to stage a new adaptation of The Three Musketeers. Only, they aren't nearly as prepared as they should be. With puppets and pool noodles, this theatre group prepares for their glorious come back...that may not happen." (New Play Exchange)

Liked: This play is a love letter to storefront theater. It also ridicules it a bit, although affectionately. Anyone who has ever been in a rehearsal where an actor is missing, personalities are clashing, people don't know their lines, and some in the company are terrified of putting on a truly awful show, will recognize a lot of these moments. And anyone who has ever worked with a scrappy little company and worked past all of those things with a spirit of ensemble, play, and the show must go on, will recognize this world. I also loved the great silliness that starts out as terrible, but becomes part of the joy of making theater. There are a couple of fight scenes involving puppets being strangled and being thrown about the stage that I enjoyed very much. An enormous, improbable battle scene is made even more hilarious by being between just two actors manipulating puppets, with brooms and mops playing puppets. As someone who has played an entire army with dancing puppets attached to my shoulders (I swear - see photo below), I really enjoyed this battle. I loved that the puppets representing the four musketeers may have had "Hi, my name is ..." stickers to identify each, and also the one actor speaking all the lines included an "I, Porthos" or some such identification to let the audience know which musketeer was talking in each moment. It was incredibly silly but fun. The chaotic and ridiculous scene also poked at the ridiculousness of the scene in the book. This seems to be a theme in the play - the tangle of the plot in Dumas' novel is all over the place.

What I didn’t Like: This play felt like someone wrote an adaptation of The Three Musketeers, really wanted that to be produced, and just couldn't make it happen. Although they do sometimes make fun of the writing of the novel, it feels like the playwright truly wanted to write that story, as we get a lot of Dumas's plot and less of what is happening with the actors and the company. And, honestly, I really don't care that much about The Three Musketeers. I would be happy if a lot of that story got cut and much more story about the company was explored. I also didn't like several of the characters - maybe that was intentional? Jordan is just rude and tense (although with pretty good reason), and Alex, the playwright/director (also acting in the play!!!) is dismissive to most of the cast and full of themself. Honestly, if I had been present during this mess of a run-through, I would probably be as frustrated and annoying as Jordan. Taylor, who is described as "Great performer. Knows every warm-up in the book. Believes in the spirit of theatre," is mocked by Alex for wanting to do a company warm-up. A few pages later, Taylor calls Kai a nerd for actually reading Dumas' book. Taylor is the last character I would expect to do that. Um, I would hope that all of them read the book?!!! And those that didn't would be embarassed that they didn't and not mocking a fellow cast member for actually reading it?! Also, in the final massive battle scene, why are all of the Musketeers played by puppets? It is funny, as I noted above, but why aren't the Musketeer actors playing those parts in the battle? I think if I were in the audience, I’d have that question in my mind…

Overall: There are some really funny moments in this play, most of them from recognizing the challenges of doing storefront theatre. Sometimes moments about these challenges are less than funny, and just make the individuals in the company seem like bad theatre practitioners, which I don’t think is the goal of this piece. There's way too much of Dumas' story, and not enough of the story of the individuals in the company. We only see enough of them to want to laugh at or make fun of them for the most part, and spending more time with their story would make all of them more three dimensional and interesting. Overall, it felt like the writer really wants to tell Dumas' story more than the story of this struggling theatre company, and frankly, I was way less interested in one more retelling of The Three Musketeers. I did enjoy how the play made fun of all the improbabilities in that story, though. I appreciated that at the end of the play the "spirit" of theatre prevailed, and the group came together as a community, although in the light of all the closings of theatre companies in the Chicago area lately, maybe it would have been more accurate to have them decide that this company had its day and should be done. :( All of that being said, I'm glad they didn't. I believe in storefront theatre and want to celebrate the challenges so many have fought and overcome (not unlike the Musketeers, hahaha). I'm glad that I didn't work in a theatre company where people were quite so rude to each other or dismissive of people's practice, like wanting to warm up or actually read the book the play is from. This play might be fun to see, although I would cringe at some of the moments knowingly, which was intentional, but unfortunately some of those cringes would be at the play itself.

Here’s a link to Google Sheets with more info about the play: Play a Day Sheet

Here’s a photo of me playing the Russian army with puppets:

In Organic Theater Company’s production of King Ubu (photo by Matt Yee)