RED DEVIL GREEN DEVIL
Terrapin Theatre Company
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The two title characters begin as friends, Green inviting Red to Tea, and Red arriving accompanied by a froglike baby (or a babylike frog, if you wish). All is harmonious until Green carelessly lights a match, which so distresses the apparently pyrophobic Red that it brings out well, the devil in him. His impish anticonscience (played by a hand-puppet doppelganger) urges Red to exact revenge for Green’s offense. The discovery of a map leading to buried treasure exacerbates their enmity, taking both Red and Green on a race through field, forest, river, desert, and even dreams. After a variety of stratagems–mischievous but surprisingly nonviolent–the two finally face off only to realize the folly of their squabbling. They agree to discard their weapons and their libidos and to share the wealth.
The production has all the clever theatrical contrivances we have come to expect from Redmoon shows–not the least of which are a backdrop ingeniously mounted on a scroll for easy changes of locale and a large illustrative banner drawn from someone’s head to represent a dream. Effective use is also made of the trap doors and apron lights present onstage for In the Flesh, the Organic Theater’s regular show. Mickle Maher and Thomas make an agile and expressive pair of masked devils (of the Javanese variety, to judge by their appearance), propelled by percussionist Robert Rolston and a seemingly inexhaustible array of instruments that make noise when hit, shaken, or blown into.
