By Elise C. Hanson-Barnett
I attend the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival every year hoping to see some imaginative writing and surprising talent, and I’m never disappointed. My favorite genre, however, is absurdism, and I had not seen as many examples of this as I’d hoped until the final show I saw at the Festival: a bestiary by Zach T. Power. In Power’s strange and graceful little play, actors perform as conceptual animals and their human counterparts, juxtaposed in intimate vignettes that express notions rather than stories. The dialogue flows like rhythmic poetry, the words lovely and the usage ethereal. There are punctuations of humor and lightness but never anything frivolous or without purpose. According to Little Man Theater Company’s Facebook page, Power is a poet, this being his first foray into the realm of playwriting, and that does not surprise me. He executes the task of presenting poetry as engaging storytelling with aplomb.
The cast is small, with David Liddell Thorpe as The Dog, The Woodpecker, and The Driver, Noah Kershisnik as The Hunter and The Cat, Stacy Wilk as The Worker and The Deer, and Power as The Writer, a sort of brief narrator that popped up to introduce the vignettes. Each actor performed animal physicality, which provided an element of delight and whimsy, and each was given a lovely monologue to speak in scenes wherein they portrayed humans. Minute themes were broadened into explorative expansions, creating little dramas that made both human and animal relatable to the audience. In one scene, Thorpe as Woodpecker attempts to flee the Hunter, gasping his final breaths as a gun is aimed at his chest. Neither the Hunter nor the Woodpecker is on the wrong side of things, and we feel for both as the lyrical words of the script wash over the small space. There is a lot of beauty in what Power has done with these tiny snapshots of life, drawing attention to the significance they have to existence as a whole.
The Fringe Festival has ended, but I look forward to seeing what Little Man Theater Company will produce in the future. They appear to have a collection of fine actors and creative minds working for them, and it was a joy to witness.
Little Man Theatre Company presents a bestiary by Zach T. Power
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