"The Danube" A Review

"The Danube" A Review

By Quinn Fournier

This year's EHS Drama Club’s festival play was “The Danube”. Directed by senior Caroline Powley, they brought this one-act play to the NH Educational Theatre Guild regional festival on Saturday, March 14th. The cast received numerous awards. Awards for “excellence in puppetry” were given to Faith Larkin, Alice Martin, and Lochlin MacAulay. Two awards for “excellence in acting” were presented to Lilliana Borges and Madeline Ball. While EHS was selected to move up to the state competition, along with three other schools, the cast cannot attend due to the festival overlapping with performances for the Spring Musical, Alice by Heart.

The cast put on two productions of the play in the EHS auditorium on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, with free admission. I attended the performance of “The Danube” last Thursday, the 26th. 

Written in the early 80s by playwright and director María Irene Fornés, “The Danube” is set in 1930s Budapest, Hungary. The play spans over many years, as characters grow and develop. While an audience could assume the play is centered around World War 2, it's really more of a nondescript dystopian setting, involving sickness and possible nuclear warfare. The play follows two leads: American businessman, Paul Green (Mo Furbush), and local young woman, Eve Sandor (Lilliana Borges). The two quickly fall in love as impending war looms over their city. A mysterious illness soon spreads through the people. Eve collapses suddenly then Paul gets very sick and is eventually sent to a far-off hospital. Soon, the sickness warps their reality and turns everyone against each other. An eerie,thought-provoking, and off-center piece, “The Danube” provides intriguing text to base theatrical pursuits on.

Each scene began with an automated voice-over, a tape to learn languages by. Over the speakers, a phrase would be spoken in Hungarian, and the actors would repeat it in English. This did not continue throughout the entirety of the scene, only the beginning. Each tape had a title, for example, “Unit One. Basic Sentences:” It took me a minute to catch onto the strange dialogue. The characters speak almost robotically, in an unnatural manner. In modern-day terms, think about what sentences you would practice on Duolingo, not really things you say in day-to-day life. I also assumed that some of the off-putting nature of the dialogue is because it's almost as if the characters are speaking English as it would translate directly into Hungarian. This device creates an overarching feel of mechanicalism and control.

As the play progresses, characters begin to die. Each time there is a death, the character's shoes are placed at the edge of the stage or the bank of the Danube River. This is in reference to the memorial to the Hungarian Jews who were shot on the bank of the river during the winter of 1944-1945. Titled, "The Shoes on the Danube Promenade", sixty 1940s-style shoes made of iron are secured into the concrete. These people were murdered by the fascist and antisemitic “Arrow Cross Party”; many of the victims were forced to remove their shoes before being killed, so they could be sold later.

The costumes and set begin to morph into more vibrant, cartoonish pieces. The simple, neutral toned 1930s clothing is swapped out for neon versions. Eve goes from her modest white blouse and brown skirt to a bright yellow dress. Paul switches from his fitted suit into an oversized tie and polka dot vest. The table was covered in a neon green tablecloth. At first, I didn’t understand this change. I asked the director, Caroline Powley, after the show, what her intent behind that choice was. She told me it was to represent all the changes occurring around them that the characters fail to notice. The audience can clearly see the garish reality of this tragedy in the city, while the characters remain oblivious.

The characters also begin wearing rounded, black goggles, making them look somewhat like insects. These accessories were meant to be reminiscent of plague masks, but I also viewed them as a way for the characters to lose their humanity. There's something very meaningful in covering someone's eyes, as they are supposed to be the ‘window into the soul’.

Then there was the puppetry, an aspect of this show that I was unsure about going in. The first use of puppetry is in the scene where Paul is writing Eve a distressing letter from the hospital. A figure in a goggle stands over him (Lochlin Macaulay), and using strings connected to Paul’s elbows, he maneuvers him as a marionette. Secondly, there were two instances where puppetry was used for an entire scene. A small diorama of the set was brought onstage, and inside were three handmade puppets of the characters. Three actors puppeteered them, not the cast member who portrayed the human versions of these characters. The three performers acted out an entire scene, then the scene was performed by the real actors directly afterwards. On the last occasion that this happens, one of the final scenes, Paul and Eve are packing a suitcase. Where are they going? That remains unclear. What was curious to me about this scene is that the two versions were not identical. In the human scene, preceding the puppets, there was dialogue that wasn’t included at first. Eve says goodbye to her mother and asks her to come with them. Her mother refuses. The couple walks off stage. Eve’s mother, Ms. Sandor (Chloe Vecaturan), stands alone on stage. A look of distress and terror spreads across her face, then she lets out a guttural scream: “Eve!”

The conclusion of the production leaves many questions hanging in the air. Were Paul and Eve preparing to go to the United States, or were they preparing for their deaths? The puppetry in this show is meant to represent government control. I interpreted the subtle differences between puppetry scenes and real ones as the government trying to change the storyline and to control the narrative and keep it from getting too dark.

Overall, “The Danube” was an excellent production. I highly enjoyed my experience as an audience member, although I had quite a few moments of confusion. The text of this show doesn’t give performers a lot to work with, and I commend the cast for putting on such an outstanding show. The acting in this show was incredible, and it helped me navigate the context of scenes. Special shoutout to Madeline Ball, whose performance of “Waiter” was riveting. Ball delivered a monologue on the difference between Hungarian and American culture and commentary on common stereotypes of that time period, such as the “American Dream.” Her delivery was rageful, bitter, and raw. I truly got chills.

Congratulations to the cast and crew of “The Danube.”  If you didn’t get a chance to see the performance, I highly recommend looking into this play.