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instruments, the performers sing a line which is Dorothy’s plaint: "I want to go home." This is one of the themes of their work. They want to go home, be, it ever so humble. Home to where the old folks are. Home, home on the range. Home Sweet Home. Home to where the heart is. They can't go home again, of course, but they have gone back to their roots, to the roots of the American theatre, in search of a form by means of which they can articulate their yearning, their desire. They have discovered and examined in their work the modern-day myths which move them as artists and as human beings. In presenting them in action on the stage, they seem to be saying that a large part of what makes us what we are as people and as Americans can be found, like Dorothy’s happieness, right in our own backyard.

(By

Peter Malony)

collage of americana

“Medicine Show” is not so much a play as a way of theater. It is a collage of American

fact and fiction, patriotic songs, vaudeville turns, tap-dancing and tomfoolery-created and performed by an ensemble of exceptionally attractive and talented actors and actresses. As demonstrated in “Medicine Show" both the company and the entertainment currently playing at the Performing Garage operate under that title “The Wizard of Oz" may be the definitive middle-American myth. The company's attitude toward “Oz” is somewhat related to Andre Gregory's attitude toward “Alice in Wonderland" improvisations on themes and situations using the actor's theatrical and kinetic imaginations. Perhaps the “Oz” segments of "Medicine Show” could be expanded and intensified, but one of the joys of the show is that it does not belabor anything, certainly not Symbolism and Significance. It is not even much for scenery, props and costumes. There is simply one backdrop, a medicine show platform, and the actors occasionally carry and play musical instruments. At one point someone gets a foot caught in a trombone. This is an extremely lowkeyed entertainment. But the message Is there if you want to receive it. There is an abrasiveness to the humor that makes gentle mockery of chauvinism. Dorothy’s trip on the yellow brick road could be considered a pursuit of selfimprovement, a personification of do-good democracy. One almost experts to find George Washington at the end of the road, not the great Oz. Instead there is Captain Rainbow, the friendly medicine man yearing a cape of many colors. Actually George Washington is at least half the show. His story is woven together with Dorothy’s, and there is also a running gangster dialogue that spunds like snippets from Raymond Chandler. Scenes overlap so

that, like children at a three-ring circus, we watch a panoply of Americana. It is perhaps unfair to single out anyone form the ensemble, since everyone is adept, but particularly noticeable are R. Patrick Sullivan as Captain Rainbow, Elizabeth Von Benken as Dorothy and James Barbosa in a variety of guises. The work is directed by Barbara Vann. The “Medicine Show" company was formed by graduates of the Open Theater. If this show is an accurate indication of their art, the new group plans to accent openness. This is in all respects an amiable entertainment, so much so that one is easily willing to forgive the digressionary nature of the evening.

The work is called “a continuing creation of Medicine Show Theater Ensemble, Inc." The creation to date is polished, but not fixed. Suggestions are not solicited from the audience, but it seems likely that if you offered an idea, they might accept it-just as we readily buy the soft drinks and fresh fruit the actors sell at intermission. The good-natured “Medicine Show” currently Is alternating at the Performing Garage with Charles Ludlum’s fantastical “Eunuchs of the Forbidden City.” For diverse views of theater communities in action, you should see both.

Mel Gussow)

(By

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