Eric
Uhlfelder
| THE CITY OF LIGHT AFTER DARK Café Resistance
Paris 1939. World War II has just started. The Germans have invaded Czechoslovakia, made a pack with Russia, and set their eyes on Poland. France thinks it’s protected by its Maginot Line, built after the last World War to keep out the Germans. But the Nazis simply go around this fixed entrenchment up north through Belgium and into France and to Paris. With this as backdrop, Café Resistance is the most ambitious Off-Off Broadway I’ve ever seen.
Comprised of an ensemble of 18 actors playing 20 characters, the play incorporates live piano, violin, and cabaret performances including songs and flamenco dancing, and historical film footage showing various scenes in and around Paris during the Nazi occupation. The play is a series of counterpoints: French civilians and German soldiers; the escape to imaginary cabaret life and the struggle for subsistence; bombings, occupation and collaboration; prostitution and love; exploitation, betrayal, and murder; refinement, sophistication and antisemitism; patriotism, sacrifice and resistance. For theatergoers not familiar with what the city was like during the war, the play may appear a made-up cacophony of themes and actions. But it works because life in Paris under occupation was surreal, which director Lissa Moira artfully unveils.
This mythical cabaret, the Blue Parrot (no doubt a nod to the fictional Moroccan café in the movie Casablanca) is on the Rue Lepic in the impoverished artist quarter of Montmartre. Even before the play begins, the mood is wonderfully set by period piano music performed by Casimir (played by Tristan Cano) and the Countess (Susan Mitchell) on violin. And a few lucky members of the audience are brought into the play with café table seating edging the front-end of the stage to further enhance the sense of being there. There’s authenticity in the casting of slightly older, often coarse Rubenesque figured ladies who are the cabaret’s entertainment. One can easily imagine them walking the quarter’s streets at night. But making their paltry living for a tight-fisted café owner Marguerite (Sandra Leclercq) is a more attractive alternative. Further driving the play’s veracity is nearly half the talented veteran cast being members of Actor’s Equity.
The story takes off when Marguerite decides to escape Paris for the safety of the countryside and leaves the cabaret’s operations to Louise (Marlain Angelides). A hidden Jew in plain sight, Louise becomes the pivotal character around which the action evolves that intensifies when the Germans decide to make the Blue Parrot exclusively their own well of relaxation. As she assumes the lead, Angelides shines, bringing us into her distraught yet not quite hopeless world where she is forced to part from her young boy to keep him safe, manages her motley crew of ladies, and keeps her owner at bay while secretly plotting against her clients. Adding to the intrigue of the story line is the playwright himself. Inspired by the current threat of authoritarianism, Roberto Monticello lives by his words, having dedicated much of his life to actively supporting humanitarian causes—when he’s not making 28 films and writing 19 plays. He has worked with Doctors Without Borders in Ukraine and Gaza, delivering much needed food and medicine. Having been seriously wounded, he has witnessed and experienced the horrors of war firsthand. His accomplishments have earned him numerous citations, including the UNICEF Relief’s Dag Hammarskjold Medal. Big stars are currently holding stage on Broadway these days. But
for theatergoers looking for something less glamourless, less polished,
and a far more personal experience, I recommend stopping by the
Blue Parrot. |
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