What does a sneezing man, a spoiled boy and scantily clad reptiles have to do with the fate of the world? Not much. However, in Exchange at Café Mimosa,"" the Mercury Players Theatre's latest production, that's the whole point. A surrealist comedy, the play will mix absurd situations with provocative messages when it takes the Bartell Theatre stage for its Wisconsin premiere this Friday night.
The plot is hardly concrete, but it generally revolves around two couples - one American, one European - who are each given mysterious packages with instructions to exchange them on a remote island. Mankind, by the way, is counting on them.
The premise definitely previews the nonsensical circumstances to come, especially when the audience realizes that the entire cast - aside from the two couples - is comprised of characters who don't have names so much as amusing archetypes (including ""Man with an Allergy,"" ""Man from the Sandwich Islands in a Gourd Helmet"" and ""Woman in a White Dress""). However, this absurdity also provides a faà §ade for more intriguing themes in the play, according to UW alum Al Hart - who plays the American husband, Peter Brown.
""It's a surreal piece so it's kind of subject to a lot of interpretation,"" Hart said, who modestly described the play as ""a little outside the mainstream.""
Although the audience will be busy teasing out meaning from the gourd-helmeted, ""God-like"" figure's cryptic non sequiturs, Hart said learning to act out the ridiculous roles was no easy task either.
""As an actor, you can't just play weird ... you have to believe that there's a motivation there that makes sense ... it's really easy to come away from your first reading kind of scratching your head and wondering what you just read,"" Hart said, adding how important director Casey Sean Grimm's strong vision was to the project's success.
Although the unconventional roles were challenging, Hart said the cast was still ""an unusually harmonious group"" during the past six weeks of rehearsal. UW senior Kelly Maxwell - who played a mystical parrot bent on creating chaos through constant repetition - agreed. The cast's maturity and experience, according to Maxwell, created a ""calm, burning energy"" to offset the play's ""exhausting"" pace.
Not wanting to lose the audience in this crazed whirlwind, Maxwell said another challenge for her was making her character relatable in some way.
""We're trying to make our performances really naturalistic, so I'm not acting like a bird,"" Maxwell said, though she admitted to studying parrot videos in search of inspiration.
Besides Maxwell's giant parrot, the play also features several escaped reptiles who ""skid around through the play,"" Hart said. If finding last-minute cast members willing to don lizard masks wasn't difficult enough, Hart decided to add another prerequisite.
""Strange as it sounds, we're adding some sex appeal with our reptiles, people are wearing those lizard masks but are otherwise scantily clad ... and that was one of the biggest challenges, just recruiting people to do that,"" Hart said.
Still, Hart said the play's ""edginess"" is about more than its reptilian tail and the other ""implied sexual activity"" that warranted a ""Mature Audiences Only"" disclaimer.
""There's a lot of physicality, a lot of action ... drama and intrigue as well as real humor and sex appeal,"" Hart said, joking that ""it's a show that any number of people, frankly my parents included, probably aren't going to get ... you might walk out of it wondering what you just saw, but you won't be bored.""
Like a guru in clown costume, ""Café Mimosa"" will be delivering its slightly unhinged philosophy through Nov. 14.
