Comedy is difficult to do well. Bouffon is even more difficult. Bouffon is a style of theatre whose main focus is the art of mockery. According to Wikipedia, bouffon performance techniques include “burlesque, commedia dell’arte, farce, gallows humour, parody, satire and slapstick”. Any of these are tough to master; to master all of them requires enormous skill.
Ottawa’s Black Sheep Theatre has brought in the 3-person Brooklyn/San Francisco troupe Under the Table to perform their production The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame. The concept behind this short (a little over an hour) play is that 3 hunchbacked siblings – Paul, Johann and Hilda Hunchinson – are performing Paul’s atrocious adaptation of Victor Hugo’s melodrama, a doorstop of a novel about good and evil in medieval Paris.
Paul Hunchinson’s script is dreadful, the family’s acting is terrible, their set and costumes cheesy, Johann’s few musical numbers painful to listen to, but hey, it’s bouffon, so it’s OK that it’s a send-up of theatrical foibles. For example, more than half of the performance consists of (a) Paul declaiming his “director’s notes” or “choreographer’s notes”, or (b) Johann trying to sell Hunchinson merchandise to the audience, or (c) Hilda trying to entice a male member of the audience – any male will do! – to come home with her after the show.
Opening night, October 22, there was a sparse audience, likely because of the dreadful real-life drama on Parliament Hill. But the crowd was eager to be entertained, and went more than halfway to meet the performers. We laughed at most of their jokes and silly behaviour, and played along with the audience participation (it WAS fun pitching paper “cobblestones” at the bad guy!). And I may never see a moveable scaffolding used on stage again without giggling…it really was a masterful prop.
So if you go to The Hunchbacks, your enjoyment will depend on the willingness of the audience to play along with the threesome on stage.
The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame is at The Gladstone (910 Gladstone Ave) until November 1. Information and tickets at here.
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