Review: Avant-Garde 'A Swedish Tiger' Part of Synetic Theater's Blackout Series

Here's what you can get in an hour's worth of European avant-garde these days: a wry artistic manifesto, a spectacular one-man re-creation of a Hollywood action movie and an excavation of a nation's unexpectedly dark soul.

Oh, and a quiet bystander in a tiger suit.

That's the fare in "A Swedish Tiger," at any rate, and if you like your narrative artfully jumbled and expertly performed, the show gives good value. The piece was performed two summers ago at the Capital Fringe Festival, and it's being re-presented now in Synetic Theater's small Shirlington space (a half block from Signature Theatre) as part of the company's Blackout Series for new works.

Synetic is the troupe acclaimed for movement-driven treatments of the classics, and "A Swedish Tiger" easily meets the house standard for bravura physical performance. Writer-performer Goran Gillinger is particularly breathtaking in the action sequence, executing crisp assaults, battlefield mayhem and even war crimes (Lord, you know them when you see them) to the strains of an explosive, anthemic soundtrack.

Gillinger, playing an iconic Swedish ghost haunted by memories that only gradually come to light, even mouths the film's cliche-riddled dialogue, and the effect is both mesmerizing and hilarious. The picture that the ghost is lovingly imitating is some not-quite-identifiable bit of big-budget hero worship; Gillinger's character adores it, but the tiger, initially watching the movie on TV with the ghost, finds it passe.

"Garbage," the tiger says in one of his rare lines, and Daniel C. Edwards pronounces the word with European snobbery ("gah-bage"). This is an effete cocktail-party tiger -- a guy standing up in a cute striped costume -- and as the evening proceeds, he comes in for increasing levels of physical and verbal abuse. The cuddly, docile tiger is the real object of playwright Gillinger's wrath, even as the sallow-faced ghost that Gillinger plays grows more tyrannical (especially during a deliberately bizarre and sadistic stand-up routine).

Both figures are national emblems; the ghost seems to be in traditional Swedish clothing, while the characteristics of a true "Swedish Tiger" apparently include shutting up. Gillinger's critique becomes explicit during an interrogation scene about Sweden's "neutrality" during World War II, and the laundry list of wartime activities is interesting, to say the least.

The theatrics are the hook, though, as the ghost understands from the moment he is revived to start the show. His spoken manifesto ponders the problem of reaching audiences in an entertaining way while getting them to think.

"Art is not a simple thing," the ghost observes. That's okay: Gillinger uses his tools well, getting comic mileage out of an overhead projector and creating stark effects with plain words. His experiment might only last an hour, but it's rewardingly packed.

A Swedish Tiger, by Goran Gillinger and Jens Östberg. Directed by Goran Gillinger. Costumes, Ewa Wallin; lights, Abby Lynch; set, Goran Gillinger and Richard Henrich. Through May 24 at 4041 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Call 800-494-8497 or visit http://www.synetictheater.org