Brown Box Theatre Project Astonishes With The Mind-Blowing "The Hotel Nepenthe" by John Kuntz - At Atlantic Wharf

Whatever genus of mushroom John Kuntz has access to that enables him regularly to transcend the gravitational bonds of quotidian logical discourse and linear narrative exposition, and to soar into the realm of magic and genius as a playwright - I want some of those mushrooms. "The Hotel Nepenthe," currently being presented by Brown Box Theatre Project at the Atlantic Wharf is an example of a play that inhabits several universes simultaneously. It has one foot in the world of Theatre of the Absurd. It has another foot firmly planted in the cosmos of Theater of the Ontological, in that this play invites us to examine the nature of being - in a multiverse, or in a dizzying array of parallel universes.

Margaret Clark and Michael Underhill
"The Hotel Nepenthe" by John Kuntz
Brown Box Theatre Project
At Atlantic Wharf
Through March 11
Photo by Maggie Hill Photography

The dramatist accomplishes this theatrical leger de main using four gifted actors who represent eighteen disparate (and often desperate) characters. Margaret Clark, Rebecca Schneebaum, Cam Torres, and Michael Underhill are more than equal to the task of keeping pace with the playwright's rapid grinding of the tectonic plates that under-gird the memorable characters and their shifting universes. Scenic Designer Abby Shenker has created a malleable playground for the actors, made up primarily of a series of cubes and frames of various sizes. The set pieces are forever being moved to different places on the stage, and reconfigured so that they are sometimes parallel, sometimes perpendicular to one another, sometimes lying flat on the floor. Actors sit on them, in them, lie atop them or atop one another. And each permutation serves to remind us that a slight variation of setting and character ushers us into a new universe. It is both mind-boggling, hilarious, sobering, and wildly entertaining. A character holding a Rubik's Cube serves as a visual metaphor for the underlying theme of this play that there are many ways in which our multi-colored facets can turn and interact.

Lighting by Keithlyn Parkman and Costumes by Lila West serve to abet the playwright and the actors in signaling shifts from one universe to the next.

Margaret Clark and Michael Underhill

Rebecca Schneebaum and Cam Torres

"The Hotel Nepenthe" by John Kuntz

Brown Box Theatre Project

At Atlantic Wharf

Through March 11

Photo by Maggie Hill Photography

The characters are as diverse as this sampling: a bellhop, a brother, a rent-a-car gal, a taxi driver, a bus driver, and Senator's wife with Presidential ambitions, a whore, a starlet, a baby, a fairy with wings, a sister, a mother. And the common thread that binds them together across space and time is the plaintive cry:"I wish my life mattered, somehow. That this pervading sense that this is just a bunch of random stuff happening would dissipate. And through all the chaos, everything would somehow make sense." There is the heart of this play, and it touches the hearts of each sentient audience member. Director Alex Lonati uses the talents of the actors and creative team with precision and vision.

Margaret Clark and Michael Underhill
Rebecca Schneebaum and Cam Torres
"The Hotel Nepenthe" by John Kuntz
Brown Box Theatre Project
At Atlantic Wharf
Through March 11
Photo by Maggie Hill Photography

A note on the term and concept of "nepenthe." Attributed to Homer around 700 B.C., it means "something capable of causing oblivion of grief or suffering," or to have the opposite effect. Nepenthe can offer comfort amidst grief and hardship, or it can cause discomfort and death - and it can be both at the same time. The universe - or multiverse - will decide.

You should decide to inhabit this multiverse and check into "The Hotel Nepenthe" - this evening at 7:30, or next weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday March 9-11 at 7:30 at Atlantic Wharf. Tickets are free, with an opportunity at the end of the show to give donations.

Brown Box Theatre


Enjoy!

Al