Or ... The Mystery of the Abandoned Trousers |
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| UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL |
| By Glen Berger |
| Thanks to all those who attended the July 9, 2010 performance! Watch here for upcoming appearances by The Librarian.... |
| A Librarian as a Sleuth in Hot Pursuit ''Underneath the Lintel,'' a monologue by Glen Berger, is a tale of a picaresque journey that evolves into a spiritual quest; it is, as a script, a writerly muscle-flexer. Bruce Cromer plays a Dutch librarian, a fussbudget with the personality tics of the shy, small-minded and eccentric, a man whose life's focus is making sure no one tries to get away with leaving overdue books in the library's overnight return bin. Or at least it was his focus until some months before the action of the play begins, when he found a book in the bin -- a weather-beaten Baedeker -- that had been checked out 113 years earlier. Ever since then he's been on a quixotic and around-the-world search for the returner -- and the borrower -- of the book, and the results are of enough import that he has arranged to deliver his findings in a public lecture. Thus the play; with the aid of a blackboard, a screen for slide projections and a suitcase containing scraps of evidence, the librarian, with increasing agitation, tells his story. There is something innately compelling in this construct, the unlikely discoverer of a secret thread who is instinctively moved to pull it and pursue the consequent unraveling. What is unraveled here is a mystery that dates to the Crucifixion. In the service of his very good idea, Mr. Berger has taken great pains to make the journey tortuous: the librarian follows clues -- the first, left in 1913 as a bookmark in the Baedeker, is a yellowed claim check from a London dry cleaner -- that lead him to a post office box in Dingtao, China; a government records bureau in Bonn; a sound and photo archive in New York; and an attic in Australia. That all these plot points are peculiar and obscure is part of the point. The logical connections made by the librarian are meant to be a little ridiculous, testament to an inspired obsession that, by the end, assumes the character of faith. Mr. Berger's script makes all the right moves, pacing the narrative with aha! moments and comic asides, providing interesting historical tidbits when necessary (we learn, for example, about the fox hunters' habit of plugging up the fox's lair the night before the hunt, a practice known as earthstopping), and gradually deepening the librarian's self-awareness as he becomes an Everyman, equally moved by the agony and ecstasy of existence. |
| REVIEWS FOR BRUCE CROMER IN UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL “Cromer uses an appropriately headlong, frantic pace for the librarian — if you recall John Cleese’s work in MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS, you get a taste of what he’s doing... Cromer is a delight to watch. He vibrates around the stage: his arms and legs play odd angles as he pleads with the audience. ...Cromer brings a vitality to the script that makes it come to lively, funny life.” City Beat - October 10, 2002 “Cromer gives a brave and beautiful performance...” Cincinnati Enquirer - Oct. 11, 2002 “There is a rare and stunning occurrence in theatre when an actor makes a transcendent move from performing a character to creating the illusion of becoming the character. ...Bruce Cromer achieved this feat... He brings to his role of the librarian in the one-man show UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL stunning authority, passion, and energy.” Cincinnati Post - October 12, 2002 |
