The character of Ondine from the Jean Giraudoux play is hard to define. She is not a mermaid or a changeling, but she seems to be a gamine of the waterways, a denizen of waterfalls and lakes, and a wild child of the forest primeval. She actually appears to be a naiad, or water nymph or water spirit.
In Bakersfield College’s production of Giraudoux’s “Ondine,” set in the Middle Ages, directed by BC theater professor Randy Messick and shown in BC’s Indoor Theater, the viewer soon finds that the water sprite Ondine (Sarah Taylor) replaced the child of a peasant couple, Auguste (Justin Thompson) and Eugenie (Kelly Fappas) much as a fairy changeling would.
However, traditionally speaking, fairy changelings are usually very ugly, and Ondine is very attractive. Nevertheless, her sudden appearance in the couple’s lives is a mystery. Auguste tells the visiting knight errant Hans (Ronnie Hargrave) that “there wasn’t a mark on the sand, nor a footprint-nothing-to show how the child (Ondine) got there.” Furthermore, going by alchemist Paracelsus’ definition of mermaid, although a dweller of any and all bodies of water, including the sea, Ondine is not a mermaid because she does not appear to need to marry a mortal to gain a soul.
Ondine just seems to have an inordinate craving for human love and companionship and to be a personified water spirit. Auguste, Ondine’s adoptive father, says of Ondine, “She is the storm. She is the lake. the waves lapping at our feet. the rain on our cheeks.”
However, no matter how Ondine is defined, Giraudoux, who also wrote the plays “Electra,” “Amphityron 38” and “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” drew an engaging character in a play about how two contrasting worlds cannot mix.
Unfortunately, some of the performances in the play were only adequate. For example, Sarah Taylor, with her gentle voice and manner, played the 16-year-old Ondine with appropriate girlish intensity. Taylor also conveyed Ondine’s bluntness and lack of courtly sophistication well enough. However, there seems to be a tentative air about Taylor that seems to be connected to lack of theatrical experience and sophistication. Also, her voice was weak and did not project particularly well throughout the production. Furthermore, Taylor is too sturdy to be playing a wispy, waifish, haunting water spirit. Ultimately, Taylor’s performance made her character one of the least interesting characters in the play when her character should have been the most interesting; her body and facial movements could have been more animated.
Unfortunately, the performances rendered by two other cast members, Matthew Borton and Luke Choate, who played Bertram and the King respectively, could have used a little more body and facial animation. Borton and Choate did not go very far beyond wearing genial expressions and folding their hands complacently in front of themselves.
Again, lack of experience and sophistication could be at the root of the problem. Choate’s other problem was that he was wearing a preposterous and incongruous outfit with what looked like Cossack pants and a traditional monarch’s crown.
Sadly, Ronnie Hargrave as Hans is as Johnny One-Note as he always is in all of his performances. As usual, Hargrave comes across as a sweating, tightly grinning Parsifal-like buffoon. Hargrave even had a hole in the seat of his black leotards.
However, other performances saved the production. Steven Littles as The Old One had the best projected voice, and Laura Lopez and Tracy Herda as the judges were both loud and clear and fully animated.
Furthermore, playing the gloating fisherman, Randy Messick was as salacious, avaricious and smug as his character was supposed to be. Stephanie Jones as the intrusive Woman in Pearls was also interesting to hear and to watch. The voiceovers done by Ondine’s chorus of sirens (Natasha Spickenreuther, Jetye Bryant and Heather Bryson) were appropriately eerie and well orchestrated.
BC’s next production will be “Two Sisters and a Piano,” by Nilo Cruz. “Two Sisters” will run April 24, 25, 26 and May 1, 2, 3.
The play will be directed by BC theater professor Kimberley Chin.