Shipwrecked Is Fun Entertainment, True Or Not

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — On a bare stage, a Victorian mountebank puts the finishing touches on his toilette and turns to address the audience: we are about to be awed and entertained by the true account of the most astounding adventures of an Englishman who spent thirty years, first, marooned on a desert island, and then living among a tribe of cannibals as their chosen chief. And how can we be sure of the veracity of these amazing tales? Because, dear patrons, they happened to your humble narrator himself.

Michael Countryman is Louis De Rougemont, a real life Victorian author, whose serialized autobiography made him a best selling celebrity. A sickly child, raised by a doting but overprotective mother, who kept him an invalid while entertaining him with adventure tales from Robinson Crusoe onward, DeRougemont left home at seventeen to seek his fortune. Robbed on his first night in London, he blunders into  Captain Jensen’s expedition to go pearl fishing in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Australia.

When the drunken captain refuses to heed DeRougemont’s warnings about a gathering storm, the ship and her entire crew are lost. Only Louis survives, towed to shore by the captain’s big-hearted dog, Hugo. Together, Hugo and DeRougemont spend many years alone on the island, with Louis passing the time by practicing gymnastics and stilt-walking (skills that will come in handy when dealing with cannibals).

Eventually they rescue a disabled catamaran, containing three moribund aborigines: a young woman, her aged father, and her little brother. After reviving the trio, and charming them with his ability to turn cartwheels and stand on his head, Louis settles into a peaceful life on his island kingdom… until the young woman expresses a wish to return to her home.  Repairing their boat, he takes them back to their tribal village where they all live in peace until they are attacked by a neighboring tribe.

The Englishman’s talents enable him to rout the enemy, and as a result he is made the new chief and gets to marry the maiden. Finally after thirty years, a desire to return to England leads him to cross the great Australian desert on hands and knees until he is rescued by prospectors who book him passage on a freighter back to London. Where his aging (but still doting) mother advises him to publish his story and make their fortune.

All of this is presented in the form of a delightful and hilarious dramatic exercise, performed by Countryman with the aid of two extremely talented “players” Angela Lin and Jeff Biehl, accompanied by myriad sound effects and rudimentary props. Biehl in particular is able to switch from being an effusively face-licking dog, to an entire tribe of cannibals and even to a benevolent, if stuffy, Queen Victoria (among many other roles) while Lin assumes an equal number of roles, ranging from the drunken sea captain to the aborigine maid, as well as from De Rougemont’s aged mum to a suspicious scientist from the Royal Society.

The creative team of Director Evan Cabnet, Set Designer Lee Savage, Costume Designer Jessica Wegener and Lighting Designer Tyler Micoleau, as well as Drew Levy on sound design, and movement coach Tim Acito have put together a marvelous “Entertainment” which is what this is.

Fun for adults, it reminds me most of children’s companies like the Paper Bag Players that we used to take our kids to, and definitely this is something that children (or grandchildren) would enjoy. It is both an example of the creativity of live theater, and a tribute to the power of the imagination. After all, what difference does it make if Louis, like a 19th Century Michael Frey, was making all this up? Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson were fictitious as well, but we don’t love them any the less for it.

(Performances continue Tuesday through Sunday evenings, as well as weekend matinees, until March 16, at Long Wharf, 222 Sargent Drive in New Haven.

Call 203-787-4282 or visit LongWharf.org for additional information or to make reservations.)