Life, Rhymes, and a Lot of Hats
EBM HUMPHREYS
Billed as ‘like Kafka, but funnier’, I had high hopes for The Life and Rhymes of Archy and Mehitabel, after days of abysmal technology failures and endless loops at work, for which Archy’s name was the only solace, I wasn’t disappointed.
Neither written as a play nor intended to be one, this illusion of a play is created by one-man-show actor and director Patrick Kealey, who draws from a substantial body of humorous and bitingly satirical tales of underground living during New York’s jazz age.
Born a cockroach circa 1916, protagonist Archy was the brainchild of Don Marquis (appearing in his daily column The Sun Dial for the New York Sun), although he claims to be the reincarnation of an unappreciated human free-verse poet. Most of Archy’s gutter-based companions and potential predators are also, fortunately, vessels for elevated human souls who speak English.
ANIMAL SPIRITS
Archy and his (mostly) friend Mehitabel, a sassy alley cat who has decided she was formerly Cleopatra, form the backbone of this stage adaptation, with many others peppering the narrative. As it says in the introduction to Archy’s written work: “It is an era of belief in communications from the spirit land.” Archy impersonates each character – donning cleverly-chosen headgear to indicate who is speaking. But Kealey’s accents and the vivid expression and distinction he manages to give each character in turn are enough, and one of the highlights of the performance. He seems almost himself as the old theatre-cat Tom, whose words seem written for him.
The scale of The Stables stage perfectly suits the intimacy of this work (as Kealey himself says in an interview on soundcloud) where the more-than-human characters, by turns, preen, argue and bare their souls. From Freddy the rat to an aggressive tarantula that arrived from South America in a bunch of bananas, each anecdote dazzles with craziness and wit, blotting out my own mind in exactly the way I like.
The fun Kealey has had in composing this piece is evident, as is the love with which Marquis created this community of unfortunate ex-people. And if you missed it, fear not, because the beautifully presented 1927 compilation Archy and Mehitabel remains in print today (and it’s free to download – go to digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/ and search ‘archy’). Kealey is pretty prolific too, recently directing After Miss Julie, and now adding ‘author’ to his list of roles. His first novel Bog Boy is coming out later this year.
The Life and Rhymes of Archy and Mehitabel was performed by Patrick Kealey at The Stables Theatre, Hastings, on 26 February. stablestheatre.co.uk patrickkealey.com
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