Georg Buchner's comedy -- the author's only --- Leonce und Lena, was written for an 1836 writing competition, but Buchner missed the deadline, and the play wouldn't be brought to a stage till 1895, well after the author died from typhus at age 23. Sean Graney, the director and set designer of Hypocrites' production, has adapted the play from a literal translation by Evan Garfinkle, and, with a saucy artistic flair, stages L & L on a set resembling a children's playground on an autumn's day (or night) -- a slide, where the actors enter the stage, and a tree and three rings of its fallen leaves.
Besides its gorgeous set, Leonce und Lena also sports flamboyant costumes by Alison Siple, ruffled and striped, imbued with the reds and oranges and blacks of Halloween, while the actors sport painted-white faces.
As prince Leonce runs away from his kingdom Peep with his insouciant sidekick/alter-ego Valerio, he meets Lena. They fall in love and get married. And in true commedia dell' arte style, Lena's governess, after witnessing the wedding, promptly drops dead after announcing she can now die in peace.
Ryan Bollettino gives Leonce a palpable sense of trepidation and longing which allows us to anticipate, with him, what will be to come on his trek to Italy. And his bride-to-be, Lena, played by Rendel Leatherman, is sweet and demure, having the same visible longing as Leonce.
As the play's physical embodiment of its facetious tone, Kevin O'Donnell and his drum (among other things) are onstage at all times, making mocking and jocular raps and taps as this play -- one too rarely produced in America -- unfolds.
