As soon as I enter the theater, my eyes are immediately accosted with red, white, and blue. In the middle of the stage, an enormous star-spangled tarp covers a strangely-shaped mass. Streamers, flags, half fans, and just about everything else you can put flag colors on adorn every wall. The color scheme even extends to a man standing in the center of the room, who is covered from head to toe (his bare feet are also painted) in red, white, and blue makeup. “Happy Fourth of July!” he shouts enthusiastically as he makes his way down the aisle, shaking hands and repeating himself to every patron. “Happy Fourth of July!” He speaks with an earnest, energetic enthusiasm typically reserved only for carnival barkers and the deeply unhinged. All of this, and we haven’t even officially begun stepping into the strange, strange world of I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin.
I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin is the 3rd theatrical collaboration at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre between playwright David Dickens and director Brandon Slezak, and perhaps one of the strangest comedies you will see on a stage in your life. In Slezak’s own words, the play is “a journey through a madman’s mind, as he slowly gives in to the delusion that he is Benjamin Franklin.” In Dickens’ words: “It’s what happens when an idiot gets ambitious.” So near as I can discern, the play is about an amateur chairmaker who—after a crushing defeat in a chairmaking competition—decides to start life anew as a more driven, intelligent man. It just so happens that that man is Benjamin Franklin.
However, knowing every intricacy of the plot or understanding every character’s motivation is certainly not the key to enjoying a show like this. Like Dickens and Slezak’s previous play Hyenas (also mounted at ZJU), I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin finds its voice in Dickens’ unique ability as a playwright to reframe familiar theatrical conventions through a lens of his own absurd, surrealist sensibilities. With Benjamin Franklin, Dickens chooses to distort the essence of more “sophisticated” works of literature, showing visible stylistic traces of Shakespeare, Chekov, and even Melville; all run through a filter of utter insanity.
Psychosis reigns supreme in I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin, in terms of both execution and content. Insanity can only exist with sanity to serve as a reference point, yet the play offers us very few hints of the “sane” or “normal” to ground ourselves with. The closest approximations come in the form of Jennifer Calhoun and Jeffrey Han (as the characters Pam and Earl-Craig), perhaps the only figures that are unwilling to enable and entertain Guy’s delusions. Of course it seems worth noting that Pam is herself histrionic enough to be worthy of a soap opera role, and Earl-Craig is quite literally a cartoon-style cowboy, complete with hat, red bandana, and the most over-the-top southern accent imaginable, so one must take their relative normalcy with something of a grain of salt.
Beyond these two pillars of “sanity”, the play surrounds Guy only with similarly lost and deluded characters, all of whom form a community that is so insular and enabling that they seem entirely detached from the notions of “sanity” or “insanity” at all. Director Slezak identifies this as an element that initially attracted him to the script, noting its relevance to the world we all live in: “We see it everywhere, right? People come together and give themselves over to collective insanity because everyone else seems to be going along with it. That’s why our characters bond so well, they connect within their maelstrom of shared psychosis.”
The directorial and design choices of the play underline this insanity in very bold ink, as Slezak goes far above and beyond the level of detail one expects from a typical show at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre. Even aside from the performance space being covered in American flags, Slezak employs a number of fascinating lighting and sound cues that speak to the overwhelming chaos of the protagonist’s mindset. “In the tech aspect, I originally wanted to give the audience clues,” Slezak tells me. “Certain lighting schemes would indicate reality, and other lighting schemes would indicate something happening entirely inside the character’s mind. But as the play went on I would start including little splashes of both colors in every lighting scheme so that even if the audience figured it out, they would still not be totally sure where reality ended and insanity began, because frankly, the character doesn’t.”
I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin also brings together a fantastic ensemble cast made up of faces both fresh and familiar to the ZJU roster. Dan Asher and Jeffrey Han shine in their ability to take on triple- and even quadruple-casting duties, fleshing out the bizarre world of the play with a whole host of strange and hilarious characters. Nikki Gallagher brings a shocking amount of warmth and heart to the production as Guy’s love interest Mary-Anne, leaving the audience so charmed with her performance that they practically forget that, despite her gentler touch, she is herself equally as unhinged as her raving, crazy-eyed soulmate, if not moreso. And of course the ever-incomparable Jetta Juriansz delivers a stunningly hilarious and ethereal performance as Yanti, a mysterious, overtly sexual force of nature that seems to haunt every male character in the play.
But the star of the show here is undoubtedly ZJU veteran Jason Britt, who plays our protagonist with such ceaseless energy and commitment that one often finds themselves won over by his delusional soliloquies, if not simply for how passionately and effectively he delivers them. And while Britt’s ability to deliver a performance with screaming, balls-out intensity is well-demonstrated here, careful observers will also notice that a great deal of Britt’s genius is in his subtlety. Never once does the actor overplay his hand or “let us in on the joke”, but instead opts for a deadly serious, sincere approach to his material that not only makes the character feel infinitely more hilarious, but also incredibly authentic. After all, all of this makes total sense to him.
I Want to Be! Benjamin Franklin is a comedy unlike any I have ever seen, and I mean that as a compliment. It is not only a delight to find a director/writer team with such a unique and well-defined creative voice this early in their career, but also to see the fruits of their labors come to life through the combined efforts of so many like-minded and dedicated performers. It seems fair to say that the play’s bizarre voice might be confounding or perhaps a bit alienating for the uninitiated or for those with more traditional theatrical expectations. Consistency, logic, and plot are fairly absent throughout. For my part however, I found the play hilarious, smart, deeply insane, and above all delightful. And if, as a viewer, you ever find yourself alienated, lost, or confused by the play’s myriad twists, turns, and defiance of logic, simply remember that, like the pull of insanity itself, the only thing to do is embrace it. “At the end of the day,” says Slezak, “we just want you to have a good time. It’s probably best not to think too hard about it.”
