By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Baron Munchausen is a fantastical fellow.
He travels from the moon to the underworld, from frigid mountains to the bottom of the sea. He even aspires to travel to a university near a swamp in America’s Midwest, where he hopes to teach.
He fights battles and tries to settle disputes.
He does all this at the behest of the women he courts – an empress, a czarina, a goddess.
And he’s able to accomplish this in an hour and with strings attached.
The marionette production, created by Brad Clark, of “The Magnificent Baron Munchausen: His travels, trials and tribulations” will be staged by BGSU Department of Theatre & Film Feb. 17-20 and Feb. 24-26, at 8 p.m. and Feb. 19-20 and Feb. 26 at 2 p.m. in the Eva Marie Saint Theatre on campus. Tickets may be purchased in advance at BGSU.edu or in-person one hour prior to the start of each show at the Wolfe Center for the Arts.
Despite all these wonders the Baron has experienced and royalty he’s met, our hero is penniless, and reduced to proffering his tales to a rowdy, heckling audience at a tavern. That’s where we find him before his flights of fancy carry him off to his first assignation.
Not that there’s anything fanciful about these tales. Our hero, as he tells us, is absolutely truthful. So if you’re so inclined, you could treat this as a documentary.
Tales of Munchausen, an actual historical figure, have been told, though not by him, in print, on stage, and at the movies, always subject to elaboration based on the whim of whomever tells the tale.
This production draws on the rich history as radiated through Clark’s imagination.
Munchausen (voiced by Alexis Reinbolt Tucker) is an amiable storyteller. Our hapless hero finds himself in untenable situations in the most unlikely ways, only to escape and end up in yet another bind.
Along the way he encounters Empress Maria Theresa (Hannah Boyle), Catherine the Great (Hailey Wright), and Venus (Fern Torres). All ask assign him tasks, which he is happy to take on. Along the way he has to contend with Vulcan (Dannie Ellis), The King of the Moon (Destiny Lee) and enemy armies.
The empress sends him to American search of riches, but Munchausen’s ship sinks.
While deep below we have a ballet of sea creatures choreographed by Wright with music provided by the five piece Il Collegium Barockorchester Baronique de Kornfelds – Z. Carpenter, Camryn Eck, James Wang, Kayla Collins, and Kylie Felsheim. The band provides the sonic atmosphere that is part an electronic soundscape and raucous provincial circus band with a bit of gamelan in the mix.
The puppets intricately carved by Clark, inspired by the traditions of Eastern European, are at once gorgeous and grotesque. He is assisted in creating Munchausen’s world by his colleagues Steve Boone, lighting designer, Kelly Mangan and Morgen Tracey, scenic artists, and Seung-A “Liz” Lee, costumer, pattern maker, and fabricator, as well as a company of puppeteers. The show is full of finely wrought detail and ingenious stage devices.
Everything, including the preshow admonition against photography and recording and the instruction about how to exit in case of an emergency, is given an archaic twist.
All serves to wrap the audience in the world of the magnificent baron for an hour, before releasing us back into the frozen world of a Midwest university campus, where maybe Munchausen, at least in his imagination, did find a place on the faculty.
