The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz (Act 1)

On Saturday, together with friends, I travelled to the Rachel Browne Theatre in the Crocus Building to watch the Theatre Projects Manitoba production of Armin Wiebe's first play, The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz. It's a four hand cast, two men and two women. The set appears to involve simple staging, until Obrum and Susch Kehler roll on a full-size upright piano into the temporary farm "shpika" (cabin/shed) they call home. It's the 1930s. The Kehlers are two-years married, in love, and poor. They work hard, and they still play, in every way. Obrum loves music and dreams that his Susch will learn to play more than chopsticks on the clavier. To that end he invites Beethoven Blatz, recently immigrated from Russia, to live with them, to tune the piano, and to teach Susch to play. Blatz comes haunted. He dreams of and speaks aloud of his love, Sonja, who plays the cello and, we presume, has stayed back in Russia. He mistakenly refers to Susch as Sonja, and these continual errors serve to raise the potential for something further.

For you see, though the play begins pastoral and lovely, even quaint, (this ambiance is enhanced by the Low German English dialect the actors speak) we soon learn that two years of marriage and no child on the way, with no dough rising, there is a snake in the garden. Something is "loose;" perhaps the yeast is bad. Teen, the village midwife, comes around to see how things are going, in the family way. Through her prodding the problem of Obrum's mumps, and then the wink wink possibility of Blatz as a "gypsy in the hayloft" to help solve the problem, the stories and suggestions become real. Even Obrum is in on it. He nudge nudges Blatz that he might be able to "tune" his piano. And you can hardly believe that you're watching it when it happens. Laughing and wondering you do not avert your eyes as Susch takes the advice to heart, as she takes charge, as she and Blatz, on the piano bench spinning in different worlds, connect and harmonize and align themselves with the moon.

After Act 1 you're exhilarated and a bit flushed. You feel as though something's been achieved. You feel hope heavy in the air. It's honey and light. You're sure, but you're not certain that you've just watched two unwed Mennonites coupling on a stage. You've just watched them enacting the biblical myth. You've just watched them turn Mennonite and biblical into ancient and mythical. It's been good. You want a cigarette.

(Act 2 to come)

Ride report

in: -1'C wind 3 ks SW

out: 4'C wind 5 ks SW