Washington Post
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The Washington Post
Theater & Dance
A lesson in geography, typography and stenography
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From left, Jenna Sokolowski, Katie Nigsch and Daniel Corey star in Hub Theatre’s “The Typographer’s Dream” through May 3. (C. Stanley Photography)
By Celia Wren April 14 at 11:44 AM
Few of us are passionate about the look of the cedilla, that squiggle beneath the letters in certain foreign words (for instance, garçon in French). But Margaret, the title character in Adam Bock’s quirky play “The Typographer’s Dream,” lights up when discussing the topic.
As played by Katie Nigsch in this handsomely acted, mostly sleek Hub Theatre production, Margaret is visibly thrilled when she handles a cedilla during the course of a mini-show-and-tell. After triumphantly affixing the squiggle to a wall display of diacritical and punctuation marks, she trots back to a stash of symbols and draws out a new treasure. “Brackets!” she gloats.
It’s a rare moment of volubility for the usually shy Margaret, but otherwise the sequence is typical of Bock’s unusual and poetic, if not wholly satisfying, play. Directed by Matt Bassett, “The Typographer’s Dream” features three eccentric experts discoursing on the wonders, and occasionally the frustrations, of their chosen disciplines. In addition to Margaret, there’s Annalise (Jenna Sokolowski), an excitable geographer, and Dave (Daniel Corey), a nerdy stenographer. All three fields have an old-world flavor; all three involve recording the ephemeral (speech, changing geopolitical realities, etc.); and all three can be a source of power, at least in the opinion of these three characters, who speak directly to the audience for most of the play.
Margaret, Annalise and Dave stand at, or near, three old-fashioned wooden desks placed on a floor marked with topographical contour lines. Occasionally, they produce visual aids to help explain the glories of their crafts: Dave demonstrates the workings of a stenotype machine (in the show’s opening moments, he can be seen obsessively cleaning the device with a Q-tip), while to illustrate the real-world ramifications of geographical variables, Annalise brings out a map of Gibraltar. (Elizabeth Muller designed the set and Suzanne Maloney the props; Maria Vetsch designed the personality-appropriate costumes, including a girlish frock for Margaret.)
Throughout and between the vocational pitch sessions, bits of the characters’ lives emerge. With pauses, faltering speech patterns and frequently mortified expressions, Corey makes it clear that Dave is unhappy and self-doubting, no matter how often he claims to be the legal system’s triumphant arbiter of truth. Sokolowski’s ardent gaze and tone, when she talks about map colors — and the gleam of fury in her eyes when she rants about how “social studies” has edged out “geography” in modern education — presage her impetuous behavior when the characters finally begin talking to each other, instead of straight to the audience.
Ultimately, Bock’s script doesn’t seem to achieve quite the right balance between exhilarated lecture and glimpsed personal story. The anecdotes we hear about the characters’ lives feel meager and cursory; they digress from the professional show-and-tell sequences without complementing them in a wholly revelatory way. A heated quarrel that ignites late in the play — a confrontation played too loudly for too long — proves less convincing than, say, Margaret’s speech rhapsodically analyzing the semiotics of italicized and boldfaced type. “The Typographer’s Dream” seems to need either a little more story or a little less."
MD Theatre Guide
- Highly Recommended
"...And grabbing an analogy on baseball’s opening season week, (who doesn’t want to be a baseball player!) this show is precisely in the Hub’s wheelhouse. Come to think of it, a Hub is a wheelhouse… Let’s see–Emerging artist’s work? Check. Thought-provoking material that challenges the audience to stretch themselves and their grey matter? Check. Something likely not seen anywhere else? Check. Superb attention to detail? Double-Check."
DCTheatreScene
- Highly Recommended
Let me sum this up for you right away: if you love a good laugh, go see The Typographer’s Dream.
Now, onto the more serious business of detailing why—witful, wisdom soaked, full of storytelling infused with snappy dialogue and emotional weight. The Typographer’s Dream explores the notion of identity tied to work and how our work does (or does not) color our world.
