Elliot Hilden, co-executive editor
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down to watch Augsburg’s fall theater production, “Annual! Perennial!” The show is a devised piece, meaning that the actors on stage played a pivotal role in the ideation and execution of the work. The storyline follows a family of farmers that is looking to put on their very first play after years of running a haunted house for the community. Directed by co-directors Jay Eisenberg and Madeleine Rowe, it is a “beautifully stupid love letter to the comedies and tragedies of collaboration and the triumphs and failures of what we know as ‘theater,’” according to the Augsburg theater website.
The show opened with a one-by-one introduction of each character before moving into onstage pre-show rituals and warm-ups. Then, we bear witness to roughly 50 minutes of what I can only describe as outright clownery. While I can admit there were parts that I found confusing, I could feel the story being told and found that the relationship between characters and actors transcended the stage.
I highly enjoyed the banter between the two eldest members of the family, Harold and Terry, played by Avery Cheeseman and Sam Bartelt, respectively. I rarely found myself laughing harder throughout the performance than when they began to interact. Another key player was Salma Gelle, taking on the role of Scheana, the stage manager. At the top of each “scene,” Gelle would stand from her place on stage right to announce the title of the scene, oftentimes playing on the words just said by other actors. While her role wasn’t the biggest in the show, she made it her own. Despite all the chaos and confusion packed into the production, my two favorite scenes were ones that gave Gelle a moment in the sun, as Scheana connected with, or even fought with, the others in her family.
The star of the show was undoubtedly Dante Austin in the role of Saturniño, the director of the play-within-a-play. Austin is a first-year at Augsburg and is already making waves in the department, having recently been cast in Lucia Salazar-Davidson’s “Static,” set to be performed in February. Within the world of the play, the farm is putting on the production of “LUNAR! SOLAR!” because of a “message” that Saturniño received from the moon. He spends the show corralling his family in an attempt to create his perfect play, having to juggle missing actors, a sun that won’t set, and the relentless complaining of his older relatives. Despite the frustration and struggles, Saturniño learns a lot from his family and the play and gets to drive home the main thesis of the production, that artists come in many forms, and art can truly come from anywhere.
“Annual! Perennial!” has one more weekend of shows, on Nov. 20-23, so get your tickets now at augsburg.edu/theater/boxoffice. Tickets cost $5 for students, $10 for Augsburg community members, and $12 for the general public.