ARCHY & MEHITABEL

"Headed by artistic director Paul Herwig and co-director Jennifer Ilse, the group has a manic energy and zeal expressed sometimes in ragged movement and other times in precise disciplines such as tap... Marquis wrote his Archy and Mehitabel poems to bring attention to social and political problems in New York. Herwig plays Archy, the cockroach who in this imagining raps out the stories on an old typewriter. Kym Longhi is Mehitabel, an alley cat who happens by occasionally to commiserate about life on the lowest rungs of society. Ilse leads the dance ensemble and she's fun to watch. Her energetic partners, led by Laurie White, fuel the physical engine of this piece. Through it all, Archy explores the notion of legacy, worth, freedom and the desire to leave a mark on this earth."

- Graydon Royce

STAR TRIBUNE, Sept 27, 2001

"The Theater Gallery is akin to the eccentric movement theater of the Twin Cities, reminiscent of the earliest and scrappiest works of the Theatre de la Jeune Lune--and it's no wonder, as the company's co-founder, Paul Herwig, is Jacques LeCoq-trained, like the founders of Jeune Lune...So perhaps we should not be surprised that this production includes a dreamlike street scene in which cockroaches duel each other with tap shoes and a praying mantis prostitutes herself, snapping the heads off her johns after they hand her rumpled ten-dollar bills. Archy and Mehitabel is based on the jazz-age writings of Don Marquis, who penned a series of short stories about a free-verse-spewing cockroach and a down-on-her-luck alley cat who is convinced that she is the reincarnation of Cleopatra. Marquis's writings are suffused with an alarming sadness. The insects and feral animals that pass through Archy and Mehitabel's world lead short, violent lives punctuated by brief glimpses of ecstatic beauty, and the Theater Gallery's production does an excellent job translating this mood to the stage. Archy, played by Herwig in a battered hobo's coat painted to look like an insect's carapace, ruminates angrily on the sorry lot of insects like him, while Mehitabel (played by Kym Longhi) wanders away from a litter of new kittens, leaving them in an upright garbage can in the hopes that it will rain and her needy, mewling offspring will drown. A collection of transient cockroaches provide the play with its chorus, costuming themselves to take the part of each new character in the script. When Archy visits a cabaret in Europe, they go so far as to deck themselves out in bondage collars and National Socialist brown shirts, dancing salaciously and reading dadaist manifestoes from the likes of Hans Arp. Groaning art-song instrumentation by local composer Marc Doty provides the scene's discordant accompaniment. Archy, applauding wildly, watches this cockroach cabaret while seated on the floor in front of the audience. At the same time, the cockroach chorus sets up stonily silent cardboard cutouts of additional audience members alongside him. The moment provided, briefly, a sad little metaphor for a cold Sunday of theater. Archy and Mehitabel is a marvelous work, and deserves the vigorous applause Archy provided it."

-Max Sparber - CITYPAGES, September 18, 2001