Theater review: ‘The Clockmaker’

By Celia Wren,

A bewitched tree branch juts into an office in the world of “The Clockmaker,” the intriguingly oddball play that’s the latest offering from the Hub Theatre of Northern Virginia. At least, you might think you’re looking at an enchanted branch, in the opening moments of Stephen Massicotte’s conceptually twisty drama. Later, you might decide that the bundle of twigs and found objects — a damaged umbrella, a lighting fixture, a giant spool — is a nightmarish sculpture. Or the physical representation of a sound: the crowing of a demented cuckoo clock.

That’s the way things go in “The Clockmaker,” which is making its Washington area premiere in a stylishly designed production smartly directed by Kirsten Kelly. Like the object-encrusted bough, which gives a touch of Daliesque surrealism to Daniel Conway’s blond-wood set, Massicotte’s 2009 script keeps you guessing. It can be a bit tiresome in the slow early scenes, which smack of warmed-over Kafka. But as Massicotte’s tale gathers momentum, along with layers of mystery, quirkiness and dream logic, “The Clockmaker” becomes a piquant parable about memory, guilt, second chances, and the remorselessness of time. (Massicotte may be best known for “Mary’s Wedding,” which Washington’s Theater Alliance mounted in 2004.)

Loading...

(John Potter) - Andrés Talero as Adolphus in "The Clockmaker" at the Hub Theatre.

At the center of the tale is Heinrich (the excellent Tom Story), a lonely maker and mender of chronometers in an unnamed country. After a nervous woman named Frieda (Helen Pafumi) asks him to repair a smashed cuckoo clock, he finds that an old aspiration is within reach — or would be, if a sinister bureaucrat named Pierre (Matt Bassett) weren’t snooping around.

Story nails both the comedy and the awkward pathos of Heinrich, whose asthmatic voice sometimes skids into anxious chirps, and whose body, dressed in rumpled tweed, often seems white-knuckle tense with awkwardness or suspicion. In eyepopping contrast to the clockmaker is Bassett’s unnervingly steely Pierre — a sleekly gray-suited figure, right out of “The Trial,” who has a knack of sitting at a table so that the arrangement of his posture, hands and parted hair appears perfectly symmetrical. (Maria Vetsch designed the costumes.)

Pafumi’s now-bedraggled, now-wistful Frieda is sympathetic enough, while Andres Talero brings a spot-on thuggishness to the role of Frieda’s husband, Adolphus. The funnier and more intense moments in all the performances come across particularly clearly, given the intimacy of the John Swayze Theatre, which is at the New School of Northern Virginia, in Fairfax.

Still, despite the generally fine acting, it’s the artful design elements that linger in memory. Composer and sound designer Matthew M. Nielson adds ominousness with music suggesting ticking clocks. And the visual imagery is often terrific. Joel Moritz’s lighting forms stark shadows and menacing film-noir contrasts. Conway’s set includes a filing cabinet whose long bottom drawer briefly lolls across the floor like a nightmarish tongue.

And then there’s an important administrative form that Pierre solemnly orders Heinrich to fill out. Pierre subsequently scrutinizes, annotates and files this crucial document — which is no bigger than a fortune-cookie slip.

Wren is a freelance writer.

The Clockmaker

by Stephen Massicotte. Directed by Kirsten Kelly; associate scenic designer, Jake Ewonus; props design, Jessica Moretti; fight choreography, Casey Kaleba. About 100 minutes. Through May 22 at the John Swayze Theatre, 9431 Silver King Ct., Fairfax. Call 703-674-3177 or visit www.thehubtheatre.org.

 
Read what others are saying About Badges