"Republic of Dreams" is a dreamlike play. Joseph (played by Matthew Glassman), a painter, drapes a mannequin in a blue shroud. An old man eats soup and stares at the audience. An old woman lights a candle and chants softly, reading from a battered prayer book. The candle casts shadows that illuminate portions of the audience, placing the members within the play, as if they too are part of the dream.
Joseph, the representation of the artist and writer Bruno Schulz, speaks gleefully and nervously, his eyes widened in crazed conviction. He sets the stage for the bizarre world the audience is poised to enter, stating, "Time is too narrow to hold the sequence of events." He hints that the play will forgo the notion of past and present and forces the audience to examine the idea of reality.
"Republic of Dreams" is performed by the Double Edge Theater group, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Stacy Klein (LA '88), the troupe's founder and the writer and director of "Republic of Dreams," began the Double Edge Theater in 1982 at Tufts with graduate students and teachers.
The troupe was a response to "some sort of archaic lifelessness in theater," Stacy said.
"There must be a place in our society for those who want to ask a question, and a means of expression for those who seek what is beyond words."
Her philosophy created a theater company where plot and character are secondary to vision and movement.
"Republic of Dreams" is no exception to that philosophy. Street performers dancing with umbrellas, lovers on park benches, and a parade of clarinets and trombones give way to a chase sequence between Joseph and his friend and nemesis Rudolph (Richard Newman).
As they fight over a stamp collection, the actors play with shadows and echoes, blurring the bounds of reality, as the characters, themselves, are amplified beyond normal limits.
The play is, at its core, a play of movement. Tango weaves with music, which blends into monologue. Nothing is concrete; the scenery glides. The actors appear briefly and each plays multiple characters, revealing man's transience.
As the audience comes close to becoming lost in the absurdity of presentation, Joseph reminds us "Not to fear. Most thoughts are interconnected. Most threads lead to the same reel ... You are in another world, and it is not as dark as you think."
Unfortunately, just as Joseph makes this proclamation, he becomes trapped behind the veil of his own dream. He runs in place, calling for help, literally unable to move. He gains control, temporarily, with his paintbrush and canvas, but the characters he creates overtake his efforts.
The archduke, the opera singer, the man who holds a weasel in his hat: These caricatures of real people take over the stage and prove that we too are lost in Joseph's dream.
The archduke struts onto the stage in a white ballet leotard. He shakes out his long, curly brown hair, climbs on top of a large cabinet and proceeds to swing from an acrobat bar over the audience. At one point, he holds out his arms in front of a white curtain draped across the stage, depicting an undeniably present Christ figure. At that moment, a devil emerges from the cabinet, wearing a Hitler-esque moustache and red armband.
An old man dressing for bed and the shadows of women undressing, images serenely ordinary, quickly replace the terror of the previous scene.
The transition between the scenes highlights the contrast between the monotony of what we understand and the fear we feel at the incomprehensible. Joseph, himself, seems to suggest this interpretation, saying, "What doesn't make sense to us is not reality." An abrupt end leaves the audience stunned and confused, as if truly waking from a dream.
The theater, thankfully, does its part to ground the play in reality. The lobby hosts the books and paintings of Bruno Schulz, a Jewish artist living in Poland between World War I and World War II who was shot and killed by a Nazi soldier in 1942.
Schulz's surrealist writings, such as the novel "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass," form the basis of many of the play's monologues. Characters, such as the archduke, are taken from Schulz's sketches and paintings.
Although, like Schulz, who believed that the only refuge against danger was the "fortress of the fantastic" ("Republic of Dreams" 1939), the theater leaves most interpretation to the viewer's imagination.
