Donogoo

Review by Kathleen Campion

The Mint Theater Company on West 43rd Street has a fusty feel about it and the mission statement underscores its studied eccentricity: "...We excavate buried theatrical treasures..."

In Donogoo, Mint has excavated what it bills as "A Comedy in 23 Tableaux." Written as a novel, in French, in the 1920's, this excavation may have been ill considered.

The satirical plot kicks off with a suicidal young man redeemed by a mission: he's to save the reputation of a famous geographer who's created the Brazilian town called "Donogoo" out of whole cloth. The young man sets about getting bankers and investors, adventurers and con artists to validate the town's existence. Hilarity is meant to ensue.

Donogoo's thirteen cast members work hard offering up at least 55 characters.

The stand out player, Mitch Greenberg, is oily and wonderful. He's the one you watch. And while he plays the same character in various suits, he is disarmingly genuine in his superficiality. You not only forgive him; you wait for him.

As it is a period piece, we are meant to slip into a slower time, a talkier time. Strangely, the quick transitions between tableaux do little to relieve the sluggish pace of the long speeches and redundancies. There was a lot to memorize, and at least two of the leads stumbled regularly.

When the set is the star of the evening, the play and the players have lost the audience. The sets and projections here are stunningly inventive. Characters board the Paris Metro, and it slides out of the station. A nutty professor's mathematical musing appear under his moving chalk at light speed. A character pulls a three-dimensional book from a one-dimensional book shelf. I could go on.

The point is, Roger Hanna's projected images present us with so many charming turns, we wait on the set to entertain us again. Hanna's done seven Mint productions, and his blurb in the program notes his day job at Colorado State University. What is he smoking? He should be here all the time, making this magic.

There are some wonderful laugh lines and, as the work is a farce, they are played broadly.

One of Greenberg's characters urges men of questionable skill and character to join the expedition to Donogoo:

"...I can use all sorts of men. Even someone with no skills at all - a journalist say..."

Lamendin, the redeemed young man (James Riordan) offers his very French world view:

"Consider America — I mean, in its entirety — isn't it just one big mistake?"

"Is that a little severe?" Benin objects.

"I'm talking about Christopher Columbus," Lamedin protests. "Is there a bigger sham? He's looking for the Indies and bumps into America."

Closer to home, the bank manager comments on the fashionable self-loathing of the French:

"But, now... just as our mission arrives in Donogoo, why would you bullies kick us in the kidneys? Why? Because that's just what Parisians do!"

My guest said Donogoo is the sort of thing a really good boys' prep school might put on. That may sound harsh, but Donogoo has that feel. There are lots of stock male roles, and a certain amount of mugging to the audience wrapped in the respectability of a now obscure French poet.

The between-the-wars giddiness, the Tulip Bubble nature of the gambit, the smug jibes at bankers and scientists — exactly the sort of script a classics teacher who also produces the annual play, falls in love with.

"... the script takes too long to get going and doesn't pay sufficient dividends. Instead of reaching a comic apex, the busy plot keeps plateauing."
Alexis Soloski for New York Times

External links to full reviews from popular press...

New York Times