Sometimes I wonder what the corset budget must be like at Trap Door Theatre. It’s rare to see a show there that doesn’t feature women — and sometimes men — decked out like Kit Kat Klub denizens. One notices it perhaps a bit more in the current production of Joan Schenkar’s “The Universal Wolf,” because it’s the story of Red Riding Hood. Leslie Ruettiger’s coy and simpering Red sports some naughty underthings beneath her cloak. (Rachel Sypniewski designed the scant but fetching costumes.) Frankly, this is a show that is more fun to look at than to listen to.
Emily Lotspeich’s production runs a little over an hour, but there isn’t a lot of meat on these narrative bones — not even for Antonio Brunetti’s ingratiating “Monsieur Woolf,” who has Virginia Woolf’s last name and Pepe Le Pew’s accent.
It’s a largely derivative piece about the psychosexual underpinnings of fairy tales — beautifully encapsulated in a line borrowed (uncredited) by Schenkar from Djuna Barnes’ magnificent modernist masterpiece, “Nightwood.” “Children know something they can’t tell; they like Red Riding Hood and the wolf in bed.” Deconstructing fairy tales is relatively old hat at this point, and I’m not convinced that, underneath all the smarty-pants wink-and-nod, Schenkar has found much new to say about Red’s journey through the woods to adult danger.
Here, Red and her wine-swilling grandmother (a hearty Diane M. Honeyman) turn the tables on the lupine interloper without any assistance from the woodsman (who, Brunetti’s roughly dressed but dignified Woolf reminds us, was an invention of later versions, not Frenchman Charles Perrault’s take). Grandma has her own vindictive side. But as the corset-clad “Readers” (played by Mary-Kate Arnold and Skye Fort, who also provide snippets of musical accompaniment) remind us in song and speech, almost anyone can “look good enough to eat.” Unfortunately, looking good is mostly what this show has to offer. The narrative engine Schenkar places under Red’s hood doesn’t fully rev up to the revelatory.
REVIEW: ‘The Universal Wolf’ at Trap Door Theatre
2 STARS
Through Sept. 26, Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland Ave.; $20-$25 at 773-384-0494 or trapdoortheatre.com.
Kerry Reid is a freelance critic.
[email protected] More Top Picks Breast Pump