Written by Dave Malloy and three other performers cast in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (during a night of board games and bourbon) Ghost Quartet is an intense, yet freewheeling adventure into the depth of storytelling on the level of subconscious fracas and dreams. Falling somewhere between the spontaneous talent show you might stage among friends (when the evening lasts long into the raw hours) and the familiar barn show thrown during summer stock, Ghost Quartet is strange, playful, rough, absurd, melancholy and peppy as a calliope.
Familiar narratives are interwoven with each new song, introduced as cuts from a thematic music album (think Pink Floyd’s The Wall, or The Who’s Tommy) each one with a different attitude, angle, diction, and salient instrument. Imagery is used from: Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Pearl White and Rose Red, Scheherazade, 2001 A Space Odyssey…. There are overlaps and repetition. Scenes that vary in tone and approach. The two men and two women we see visiting so casually onstage, turn out to be the musicians and performers.
When you enter the theater, the first thing you notice is the very comfortable furniture: easy chairs, sofas, very cozy and welcoming. A member of the theatre company makes a point of greeting you and putting you at ease. During the performance, samples of good whiskey were offered. (They could have started with the Maker’s Mark!) Instruments are handed out. Great care is taken to help us feel relaxed, involved, participants in the realization of the piece, a member of a small community consisting of cast, crew and audience. There’s a personality to the way each piece is interpreted and expressed, that feels notably informal. Plainspoken?
Ghost Quartet reveals a myriad of thematic threads. Ferocious bears. Sisters who sometimes betray one another. Alcohol as celebration and truth serum. Those who deny the existence of God, yet cannot get past His absence. As I have noticed in the past, IMPRINT delights in bringing fresh vision and unorthodox endeavors to the stage. If I have noticed a pattern, it’s the desire to actively engage, surprise, dazzle and entice. Ghost Quartet submerges us in the sacred, the woeful, the gleeful, the devastating and unnerving. Whether it plunges us into darkness or entrances with its penchant for serpentine narratives. Whatever touching, sparkly prestidigitation it may bring our way, we are in for a breathless ride.
Imprint Theatreworks presents Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy, playing May 31st-June 15th, 2019. Bath House Cultural Center. 521 E Lawther Dr, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-670-8749. www.imprinttheatreworks.org