Happenstance Theater’s Barococo, now playing at the Baltimore Theater Project, is a surreal, elegant, and disturbing dream.
It is also a trenchant modern parable dressed up in satin and lace.
Happenstance is a multi–Helen Hayes Award–winning company founded in 2006 that uses physical comedy, movement, mime, dance, music, and the spoken word to craft historically flavored vignettes tinged with melancholy. Their ensemble-created pieces have been based on Edward Gorey drawings, vaudeville, vintage circuses, medieval mummers’ plays, and mime throughout the ages. Barococo is a seeming confection of frivolous aristocrats flirting and playing silly games to stave off ennui at the end of the 18th century — until it begins to sink in that these are French nobles imprisoned and awaiting execution.
Indeed, Barococo is based on Last Letters: Prisons and Prisoners of the French Revolution (1987) by Olivier Blanc, a collection of missives written by prisoners of the Terror that were never sent, but were unearthed, unread, hundreds of years later. These letters inspire one of the central vignettes of the show, as the characters gracefully pick up quills and quote from their epistles — to their children, to their estate managers, to their creditors, to their gardeners — in which we learn snippets of their stories, and feel a twinge of sympathy for them. They hand the letters to the music master (Stephanie Baird) for delivery, and when their backs are turned, he stuffs them into the harpsichord bench with forgotten piles of others.
The first impression the show gives is of a deliciously wrapped box of macarons, all pastels and ribbons. The beauty stems first from the exquisite costumes, designed by Artistic Co-Director Sabrina Mandell and constructed by Nancy Mendez, after paintings by Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher, and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, complete with towering wigs, panniers, and expensive silks. The second source of beauty is movement gleaned from original 18th-century dancing manuals. The characters minuet, pose, walk, wave scarves and fans, bow and curtsey with exquisite grace. If etiquette is a kind of language, then it is possible to write poetry in it, and this is clearly these characters’ greatest delight, even if it has no substance.
There is very little scenery, simply a harpsichord, an iron stand with two rapiers in it, and a table, and the cast makes full use of all of them for numerous different vignettes. There is dancing, hide-and-seek, and charades — in which Artistic Co-Director Mark Jaster, as a seasoned courtier, expertly mimes what feels like a full novel, which his compatriots immediately identify as “Ennui!!” Gwen Grastorf, playing a nervous Baroness Constance, evidently not on the same social plane as the others, mimes milking a cow, to which the pink-adorned Duc Pamplemousse (Alex Vernon) drawls scornfully, “I have never seen a cow.” These two also perform a gorgeous baroque duet in which Vernon’s remarkable countertenor soars, accompanied on the harpsichord by Senesio (Stephanie Baird), a young musician who seems swept up in all this merely to pay off his brothel debt.
Jaster and Mandel (as the belligerent Countess Stroganovskaya) engage in an expert duel. The highlight of the show may be when, after waiting in vain for servants to bring their repast, these famished aristos are about to despair, when courtier Cavalieri (Jaster) mimes bringing in platters of food, and the group indulges in an increasingly frantic imaginary feast, followed by a vicious and funny slow-motion food fight. Finally, the imperious Dauphine Marionette (Sarah Olmsted Thomas), clearly the coterie’s leader, literally flips the table, and it makes several rolls in the air (deftly guided by the other actors) before landing on its side. It suddenly and sinisterly becomes a chopping block, where the Duchess pretends to lop off Pamplemouse’s head, but before the horror can sink in for any of them, she bursts into peals of forced laughter, and the search for distraction in the midst of nightmare begins anew.
At points the delusion slips, and fear breaks through. At first, it consists merely of the characters looking off through the audience entrance, as if they’ve heard something unnerving. Then, Pamplemousse announces firmly, “I think I will take a walk.” He heads resolutely for the exit, then catches sight of what is happening outside, loses his nerve, and retreats. Later on, all the characters attempt to exit and then shrink back, together and individually, in an increasingly frantic and futile cycle.
Finally, as the lights dim to a bloodier color, the ensemble come downstage, sing, “If the people starve, you must pay the price,” and, to the sharp sound of the harpsichord bench lid falling, drop their heads.
The modern message becomes crystal clear during the curtain call, when they enjoin the audience: “Please VOTE.”
Happenstance’s Barococo is a gorgeous, funny, elegant, disturbing, and ultimately timely piece of theater.
Go vote, and then reward yourself with this confection with a hidden bite at its core.
Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
Happenstance Theater’s Barococo plays through November 14, 2026 (Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 PM; Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 PM) at Baltimore Theater Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD. Purchase tickets ($15–$25) online.
