Exhibitionism

Edmundo: A Musical Dalliance

Running Time: 1 hr, 15 min

When you’ve been around for 400 years, you might be excused for waxing nostalgic just a shade. There are other things for which you could be excused, too: drooling, those deep, black circles under the eyes, a propensity to suddenly burst into vaudevillian song and dance, a fondness for cafe food and the friendly waiters who serve it to you, and so on. Edmundo, a sort of Nosferatu-like ancient with remarkably large teeth, long cane, and those circles under his eyes, is just the sort of character you may have to excuse for any number of transgressions. As for his major transgression, he’s paying for that one with life eternal and a cat companion whose nine lives apparently have extended its feline existence to the infinite — the better to torture its owner. Plus, in the great care of writer/performer Jennifer Haley, Edmundo is just too entertaining and unpredictable a character to wish to see the curtain come down upon. The unpredictable is the norm in Haley’s new work, from the audience (impossible to) sing-along hit, “Pig Girl,” to the non-intermission pause, to the non-sequitur remarks to the stagehands, to Edmundo’s shuffling pre-show chat-up of the audience. The whole surprise package is personable and inviting. And the old man’s story, tangential and macabre, is fascinating and so well told by Haley.

Edmundo is Haley’s imaginative, scurrilous, charming creation, part dusty, crude, but enjoyable vaudevillian, part raconteur of an era long past where life was really rough in the New World. His story is a one-person affair: sometimes a poem, a dance, or a bit of comic schtick — most often a dark-tinged love story with mythic bad luck and aptly grim consequences. But Haley unfolds her character’s story with so much theatrical flair that it’s impossible to wallow in anything miserable without having something of a good laugh at the vagaries of Edmundo’s chaotic existence. It is performer Haley’s constant wink at the theatricality of her storytelling that makes Edmundo such a good time.

Haley’s work as a writer is equally adept: Sharp observations are mixed with her unique take on the world of men explorers, the New World, love, sex, and death. The story is almost languid in the telling, yet full of rapier thrusts that would be disturbing were all that nastiness not cocooned by so much goofiness. Plus, there’s the quirky assistance of the musical group, the Unrequited Combo, led by show’s composer Will Walden, lending yet another wrinkle to this unique little enterprise.

Edmundo, blessed with too much life, still loves it in all its detail and whimsy and brutality. Whether heating up milk for a cup of tea — perhaps the most sexually charged heated milk you’re likely to witness — or recalling the story of his one true romance and its horrible conclusion, the breadth of Edmundo’s eternal life is ultimately joyful, thanks to Haley’s own warm embrace of love, life, and theatre.

This article appears in November 1 • 2002.