{"id":13049,"date":"2019-08-13T12:08:48","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T16:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=13049"},"modified":"2019-10-01T21:23:30","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T01:23:30","slug":"double-edge-baron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/08\/13\/double-edge-baron\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Edge Theatre Reimagines \u2018Baron Munchausen\u2019 As A Visionary Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIdiots!\u201d and \u201cBalderdash!\u201d Baron Munchausen hollers, interrupting the vaudevillians\u2019 truncated staging of Homer\u2019s \u201cOdyssey\u201d (Ulysses drowns).<\/p>\n

Clad in a red coat with gold epaulets, Munchausen climbs down from a rooftop in the distance and struts over to where the audience is gathered, outdoors on a cool August evening, across a circle of benches at a farm. He introduces himself\u2014\u201cdecorated officer, lover, and keeper of David\u2019s sling, the same sling that was used to fell Goliath\u201d\u2014 and usurps the show.<\/p>\n

So begins Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d<\/a> the company\u2019s reimagining of the 18th century book \u201cThe Surprising Travels & Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” full of comedic tall tales of fantastic escapades. It’s a visionary spectacle about the power of theater, stories and magic. Performances continue at the troupe\u2019s farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts, through Aug. 18.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a>
Traveling to the moon in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019re growing here is vision, stories and vision,\u201d says Matthew Glassman, co-director and-co-author of the show. (The performers also contributed to their characters\u2019 stories.) \u201cIt\u2019s an essential part of survival, seeing new ways. Baron Munchausen, in the best sense, is about seeing new possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a reclaiming of something because there\u2019s a really fine line here between the weaponizing of lies and people telling their own truth,\u201d says Jeremy Louise Eaton, designer and co-director. \u201c\u2026When truth doesn\u2019t matter then imagination also somehow doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Baron swims across the sky in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the show\u2019s beginning, before the first Baron Munchausen interrupts, the vaudevillian master of ceremonies tells the audience gathered in the circle: \u201cTonight we gather up the cosmos. In spite of our sad landscape we will invoke the spirit of dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the Baron intrudes, the master of ceremonies asserts, \u201cHe seems to have lost his grip on reality.\u201d Munchausen professes to have visited a cucumber forest, ridden a cannonball and \u201ctraveled through the center of the earth to have tea with Gog and Magog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLies!\u201d the master of ceremonies shouts. \u201cThey aren\u2019t lies if they actually happened,\u201d Munchausen counters. The Baron is a loudmouth and a buffoon, but charming in his way. He leads the audiences off on a journey\u2014literally: the spectacle roams across the rolling farm countryside with the audience walking along behind.<\/p>\n

The Baron travels to the bottom of the sea, where he swims through the sky (suspended on wires), before being gobbled up by a (puppet) leviathan. He lands along a narrow, winding creek with wedges of \u201ccheese\u201d set atop poles in the tall grass.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Island of Cheese in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe impossible is always possible on the Island of Cheese,\u201d Munchausen proclaims. The place is inhabited by performers costumed as a curious tall bird, llama and some sort of horned bear. \u201cIt took me almost 50 years to gain their trust, but now they treat me as one of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Munchausen warns, \u201cThe Great Forgetting reaches far and wide. Even the island of these charming creatures has been decimated.\u201d He pledges a war against the Great Forgetting, shoots himself out of a (fake) cannon \u201cto vanquish it forever,\u201d and, well, the show now needs a new Baron.<\/p>\n

Eaton tells me afterward, \u201cThe first idea was to have multiple Barons. That idea for me split open the whole thing.\u201d Glassman didn\u2019t want just another old white colonizing male Baron. \u201cIt felt like an opportunity to decentralize and ask a question: Who is our larger self? How do you create that persona? It is about heroism in that sense as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The vaudevillians dance in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the show, as the vaudevillians endeavor to come up with a new script and a new Baron, they dance high-kicking chorus lines on a stage before a shed. The slapstick comedy of the beginning fades, and the show turns serious and dreamy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Great Forgetting is a threat to us all,\u201d the master of ceremonies says. (The Forgetting, Glassman says, is inspired in part by The Nothing that\u2019s devouring the fantasy realm in \u201cThe Neverending Story.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we didn\u2019t notice at first when the stars started disappearing,\u201d a woman says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Great Forgetting dimmed the skies,\u201d the master of ceremonies says. \u201cMy friend, all is lost! Go!\u201d Most of the vaudevillians dash off.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The vaudevillians perform in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the woman remains and tells of her grandmother from Bulgaria: \u201cShe always used to say there\u2019s no hero without a wound. \u2026 I wonder what will happen to the Baron\u2019s story? I think I will write it and make it my own. \u2026 I am here and life exists and the play goes on and this is my verse. \u2026 It begins with I am the Baron and I shall light our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She arrives at a sort of caf\u00e9 scene, where Death brings her a book. \u201cThe heroes in the past, their glory is written in the sky,\u201d she muses. Characters appear from behind her, including Don Quixote, who says, \u201cThe stars will help us remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The many Barons of Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The vaudevillians\u2014more and more of whom are sporting red coats or capes or vests and becoming Barons\u2014lead the audience on, singing the spiritual, \u201cIt\u2019s the old ship of Zion! Hallelujah!\u201d that will carry all to the Promised Land. They lead the audience inside a barn-theater, where the Barons ride a makeshift sailing ship to the moon and sun (embodied by costumed acrobats doing circus aerial work).<\/p>\n

\"Traveling<\/a>
Traveling to the moon in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The latest Baron offers his life to the sun and moon as a sacrifice: \u201cI am responsible for all the atrocities of my people.\u201d Death leads him into an afterlife of scrims and shadows before taking the audience outside to a field of tall grass and then a still pond that mirrors a magical library perched in the trees beyond.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The library\/archive in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe first word I had in my mind was an archive,\u201d Eaton explains afterward. A sort of library of life stories. \u201cThis idea of a place that you can\u2019t travel to physically. \u2026 The story is each person had to claim their own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Barons row across the pond, toward the audience, in a boat lit by a torch. Then the cast leads the crowd to the final scene, a tent where the vaudevillians sing a raucous, high-spirited, New Orleans-style brass band rendition (in German?) of \u201cOde to Joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/a>
The many Barons of Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Traveling<\/a>
Traveling to the moon in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Double<\/a>
Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The library\/archive in Double Edge Theatre\u2019s \u201cI am the Baron,\u201d Ashfield, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIdiots!\u201d and \u201cBalderdash!\u201d Baron Munchausen hollers, interrupting the vaudevillians\u2019 truncated staging of Homer\u2019s \u201cOdyssey\u201d (Ulysses drowns). Clad in a red coat with gold epaulets, Munchausen climbs down from a rooftop in the distance and struts over to where the audience is gathered, outdoors on a cool August evening, across a circle of benches at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,109,110],"tags":[466,465],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13049"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13077,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049\/revisions\/13077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}