Humiliation isn’t hard to depict on stage, at least poorly. It takes someone of genuine tact to do that miserable emotion justice–to capture the scrambled feelings, averted glance by averted glance.
Chicago-based Karen Aldridge is one such performer. She is one of four actors in “Le Costume,” continuing through Sunday at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in its sole North American appearance. And Aldridge, who joined the touring production last year, is one of many reasons to see it.
It is a well and humanely crafted small piece of large rewards.
Last May the London-born, Paris-based director Peter Brook brought his controversial take on “Hamlet” to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater as part of a limited U.S. tour. Now Brook has returned to Navy Pier, by way of this widely traveled 1999 production.
“Le Costume,” or “The Suit,” is based on a short story by Can Themba (1924-1968). Born in Pretoria, South Africa, he worked as a teacher, journalist and short-story writer. Themba’s work, activism and life were shaped by the apartheid policies of his nation, as well as his experiences in Sophiatown, a township outside Johannesburg.
Philemon learns his wife, Matilda, has taken a lover. Calculating his revenge, Philemon confronts wife and lover in bed; the lover flees in his underwear, leaving behind his suit, as well as a frightened Matilda. The husband then initiates a ritual that eats at the marriage like acid: The suit is to be treated like a guest, brought to the table at mealtime, fed–even taken out for a stroll.
From these 10 increasingly sad pages, “Le Costume” has been expanded to a 75-minute theater piece suffused in music. Matilda, played by Aldridge, is turned into a former nightclub singer, and a variety of South African and Western popular songs flood the adaptation.
The playfulness is often splendid. When Philemon (Isaac Kounde, vivid if somewhat predictable) rides the bus to work with his mates, the herky-jerkiness of the ride is marvelously realized. Hassane Kouyate and Tony Mpoudja portray many characters surrounding the central triangle of man, wife and wife’s lover’s suit. During a climactic party, Kouyate and Mpoudja play a whole series of party guests, memorably.
It’s a portable but beautiful-looking show, complemented especially by lighting designer Philippe Vialatte’s hot, bright golden hues. The French-language text by Marie-Helene Estienne is derived from a stage version by Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon. The overall effect is very much Brook, who directs in a fashion recalling his spare story-theater presentation of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”
At one point Aldridge’s Matilda, recalling her lover’s embrace, slips her arm inside the sleeve of the suit and becomes the lover. It is an inspired visual conceit, filled so well and truly by Aldridge it becomes something indelible. Not all of “Le Costume” is on that level of inspiration, and one could argue that Brook has jollied up Themba’s story, not always for the richer.
But one should take it in if one can, to make up one’s mind for oneself.
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“Le Costume”
When: 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave.
Phone: 312-595-5600
