The first thing you’ll likely notice upon entering the Savoy Denver’s performance space is that Theatre Artibus has placed risers and seats lengthwise, so that the audience sits on two sides of its latest work, “The Pâstisserie.” In addition to creating an intimate proximity to the patrons, the setup in the one-time ballroom affords this evocative, laugh-outright, dreamlike show a zany flow.
And flow it does, with its trio of players — Tiffany Ogburn, Buba Basishvili and Meghan Frank — sending laboratory desks and chairs skating across the floor with choreographed flair. Or unfurling a red carpet for a factory boss referred to as “The Founder.” Or fight-chasing in slow motion across the theater’s expanse to the audience’s hearty guffaws.
“The Pâstisserie” explores memory and its adjacent and achy emotion: nostalgia. If that sounds heady, it is. But the show is also a welcome delight in a Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance, be-a-clown kind of way.
At the start, the hushed, hopeful chatter of two bakers at the titular factory pricks the quiet of the darkened theater. “Here comes another one,” says Gertie (Frank). “Again?” replies Doris (Ogburn).
On the other side of a door, battlefield explosions flash and boom. On the factory side, the pair have placed a chocolate for soldier Fred Whipple (Basishvili) to find and then strewn foil wrappers like bird crumbs for him to follow.
To reiterate: Fred is not the first soldier the betoqued duo have encountered. After all, his wartime duties make him ripe for bouts of homesickness. But something always goes awry. The word “nostalgia” (from the Greek nostos “return home” and algos “pain”) was coined in 1688 by a Swiss physician treating patients, among them mercenaries pining for the familiar.
A good deal has been written on the ways in which nostalgia can be imprecise, can be a desire for something that did not exist, at least not in the way the pangs would have us believe. (Witness the strange and strained tug for some of “Make America Great Again.”)
With the turning of a cathedral radio dial, memories come in sharp (a Nat King Cole tune) or staticky before landing on another snatch of something that nudges yearning. If the factory founder’s assertions about the global reach of the company’s delights are to be trusted, nostalgia is an emotion ripe for marketing, for exploiting.
Artibus doesn’t hit us over the head with Fred’s (or our own) vulnerability to corporate manipulation (though bonking one on the head would be in keeping with the company’s comedic gestures). Artibus co-founder Basishvili trained at Dell’Arte International — one of the world’s renowned “clown colleges” — and the ensemble makes deft use of the tricks of physical comedy and circus-style performance.
Clever shadow play finds Fred’s memories being extracted from his noggin but also his heart. Those memories will make fresh products that evoke sense memories à la Marcel Proust’s madeleine. The show also makes redolent use of projections. The play’s connecting of its seemingly game factory workers to its seemingly amenable consumers in a troubling loop feels timely but hardly overstated.
Still, it is the trio’s expert timing that makes “The Pâstisserie” a quietly thrilling and amusing hour of theater. From the meticulous costumes and scenic design to the actors’ precise movements and winking way with dialogue, Theatre Artibus may leave you craving for more — and that’s not nostalgia.
IF YOU GO
“The Pâstisserie”: Created by Tiffany Ogburn, Buba Basishvili, Meghan Frank, Nicole Dietze, David Rynhart (music), Sean Mallary and Anna-Marie Monzon. Featuring Ogburn, Basishvili and Franks. At the Savoy Denver, 2700 Arapahoe St. Through Oct. 15. theartibus.com or boxoffice@theartibus.com; 303-476-5902, ext. 2.
