Review: The Butcher of Baraboo (A Red Orchid Theatre)

By Chicagotheaterbeat @chitheaterbeat

  
  
The Butcher of Baraboo 

Written by Marisa Wegrzyn
Directed by Shade Murray
A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells (map)
thru May 20  |  tickets: $25-$30   |  more info
  
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This butcher just doesn’t cut it

     

  

A Red Orchid Theatre presents

  

The Butcher of Baraboo

Review by Catey Sullivan 

The title of Marisa Wegrzyn’s The Butcher of Baraboo is somewhat misleading. As is the gallon jug of blood in the refrigerator, the mysteriously damaged cleaver that figures, sort of, late in the second act and the mysterious disappearance that hovers over an eccentric Wisconsin clan like the smell of blood in an abattoir. None of these things play quite the pivotal role you’d expect given the lengthy set up and the very title of A Red Orchid Theatre’s latest.

The piece is actually about the entire family of the Wisconsin clan, not just the titular meat merchant, a woman named Valerie whose husband Frank disappeared under mysterious circumstances that may or may not have involved the business end of any one in Valerie’s prominently displayed cutlery collection. There is also Valerie’s daughter Midge, a sullen pharmacist who moonlights dealing drugs to junior high schoolers and Frank’s sister Gail, who happens to be the town sheriff. Finally, there’s Frank’s brother Donal and his mousy yet highly fertile wife Sevenly. In all, the crew is about as exaggeratedly parochial a bunch of hicks as you’re apt to find east of the Beverly Hillbillies. Wisconsin, to judge by these Baraboo denizens, is a state of yokels who may or may not be suffering from various stages of traumatic brain injury.

That’s one of the two primary problems with The Butcher of Baraboo – the only intermittent existence of anything resembling believability or emotional truth in these characters. They would be whacky send-ups of Wisconsin rubes, but for the fact that Wegrzyn clearly isn’t writing a satire. We’re intended to take Val, Gail and Midge seriously, no matter how outlandishly caricatured they are.

The second drawback here lies in the red herrings pocking the plot. The gallon o’blood, the prominent show of ominously gleaming knives, the missing man – they all seem to point to a murder mystery. Or at least a mystery. But the only mystery here lies in the motivation for Midge, Valerie and Gail’s increasingly preposterous actions. As far as jumping the proverbial shark goes, the second act confrontation between Midge and Valerie leaps over a whole school of Great Whites. Valerie’s actions, in particular, seem more like those of a sociopath with a Medea complex as envisioned in a Wiley Coyote cartoon.

Directed by Shade Murray, The Butcher of Baraboo is somewhat redeemed by an ensemble that’s at as sharp as, well, brand new ginzu knives. The actors are wholly committed to the piece, even when the script calls for them to behave with over-the-top bizarreness.

As Valerie, Kirsten Fitzgerald is the tightly wound, sardonic anchor of the piece. She’s an intriguing pleasure to watch, no matter how ludicrous her character, a coiled powerhouse of pitch-black humor and barely concealed anger. Missi Davis’ Midge is a chip off the old butcher block, angry, churlish and perhaps capable of homicidal violence – when she’s not drugging the neighbors and then abruptly putting the moves on them. But the noisy scene-stealer in the lot is Natalie West’s goofy Gail, a cop who makes the Keystone force look like Scotland Yard. Gail’s second act maiden voyage into the wonders of crystal meth is a comic high point of Butcher of Baraboo – and while it’s never credible that the town sheriff would dip into drug crime evidence, West is a formidable loon depicting the mania that results when Gail does just that. A winning performance also comes from Lara Phillips as Sevenly, a seemingly meek, deeply Christian woman with – like all the rest – secrets of her own.

But all these fine performances – not to mention Grant Sabin’s ultra-realistic set – can’t save a play in which nothing feels at stake because nothing feels real. In the end, The Butcher of Baraboo just doesn’t cut it.

  

Rating: ★★

  

  

The Butcher of Baraboo continues through May 20th at A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells (map), with performances Thursday-Saturday at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm.  Tickets are $25-$30, and are available by phone (312-943-8722) or online at OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at ARedOrchidTheatre.org.  (Running time: 2 hours, which includes an intermission)

All photos by Michael Brosilow