With “Tales from Trashmania,” Bonnie Koloc becomes the latest of Chicago’s ’70s folk heroes to mount a one-person show.
In the play, which opened a five-week run at the Arts Center at the College of Du Page on Friday, Koloc portrays Bonique Lu Kolocova, possibly the last surviving native of Trashmania, a country of uncertain borders peopled by her eccentric artist relatives.
Koloc plays the part with wide-eyed charm and self-deprecating humor that disarmed the opening-night audience. Using a simple set, which holds a single chair, a bank of phones, and Koloc’s own larger-than-life paintings, Koloc uses videos, slides and a variety of physical props, many taken from a large trunk that arrives early on, to augment her own occasionally introverted onstage persona.
The show contains 20 musical numbers, which Koloc sings to taped, and sometimes distressingly low-fidelity, accompaniment by master keyboardist-harmonica player Howard Levy.
Because Koloc plays a musician, the play affords her lots of room, chiefly through conversations with her offstage agent, to lampoon the trials of an artist somehow past her window of opportunity. “Why Haven’t You Made It Big?” delivered as a classic show tune, pokes fun at Koloc’s own career as well as her character’s. On this, and some of the other more uptempo numbers, Koloc seems to be working out of her comfortable vocal range, but she shines on material like the bluesy “It’s a Girl” and the torch song, “Bonique’s Blues.”
By portraying her diverse relatives, Koloc has the opportunity to inhabit a number of roles, and sometimes to display her knack for broad, physical comedy, as when she mimes a relative’s first jaunt onto the high wire.
On video, she appears as the archangel Bohimil, who helps the Trashmanians turn their limitations into strengths and who gets some of the best musical moments, like the upbeat “What’s Your Talent.” The show bogs down a bit in the middle but, all in all, it is an entertaining, upbeat and good-hearted vehicle for Koloc’s renaissance skills.
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“Tales From Trashmania” runs through Oct. 12 at the College of Du Page, 630-942-4000.
