The Denver Post, CO
April 13, 2007 Friday
FINAL EDITION

4-ring "Circus" a sumptuous sampling of Saroyan

Bob Bows Special to The Denver Post

It has been two generations since William Saroyan was at the height
of his powers and acclaim, but the words from the playwright who
turned down the Pulitzer Prize still ring true in "Razzle Dazzle: A
Saroyan Circus," now running at Germinal Stage Denver.

Intercutting four short theater pieces and radio plays – with their
sometimes impressionistic, sometimes hyper-real scripts – along with
director Ed Baierlein’s free-form design and blocking, the production
captures the avant-garde nature of Saroyan’s thinking without
sacrificing the optimistic humanism of his heart.

While it’s fashionable to say that Saroyan ignored the prerequisite
of drama – conflict – that’s simply not the case here, where the
stakes are multiplied by the juxtaposition of the four plotlines,
each with its own tension. In this well-conceived sampling, the
conflict between characters simmers just below the surface. Unspoken
implications pack subconscious punch before roiling forth in waves
that alternate center stage with Saroyan’s sociopolitical
reflections.

As cited when turning down the Pulitzer, the playwright (and
novelist) was averse to the notion of commerce judging art, and in
this script that idea is clearly extended into everyday life as well.
Following an early rumination from Saroyan on the destruction of
culture by commoditization, the red "On the Air" light comes on, and
we relive a fervent speech once delivered by Burgess Meredith
trumpeting freedom and democracy.

A big bonus in this compilation is the character of Saroyan himself,
personified head to toe by Mike McCuen, who ambles from his front-row
director’s vantage to the stage, mixing a gruffy, hard-boiled
exterior with a voice pitched to penetrate our complacency, and a
down-home folksiness that invites us into his rich world of good
people who struggle with life’s temptations and conundrums.

On the night of the first preview performance, ensemble member Travis
W. Boswell flipped his car in an icy storm and was replaced by
Baierlein who, on book, easily fell into the episodic rhythm of the
shuffled storylines, and looked right at home in the studio setting
where scripts and imagined microphones periodically called our
attention to the play-within-a-play form.

The slice-of-life stories evoke feelings that range in similarity to
the nostalgic portraiture of Wilder’s "Our Town" and the absurdist
looping of Pinter, in combination peppering the evening with
razor-sharp conversations and compelling monologues.

A number of characterizations stand out, including Eric Victor’s
unassuming painter who preaches the gospel of light, Suzanna Wellens’
reticent jailhouse cook’s breakthrough of hope, Kristina Denise
Pitt’s poetic muse who transcends hunger for immortality, Marc K.
Moran’s news announcer’s homage to the universality of one fallen
soldier, and Baierlein’s itinerant gambler’s last bet on love.

The son of Armenian immigrants, Saroyan had a deep fondness for his
family’s adopted country. On the eve of World War II, Saroyan was a
member of The Free Company, a group of American writers (including
Maxwell Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benét, Archibald Macleish and Orson
Welles) who emphasized the fundamental freedoms and rights for which
the country was about to fight. Add his eloquent expression of these
values to an array of surprising insights on the human condition and,
voilà!, a unique and unpredictable drama.