Treetop Apocalypse: "The Squirrels"at Trustus Theatre Tackles Inequity Via Clever Satire (and Animal Costumes)

The decline of Western civilization as seen through the lives of squirrels.

First bronies and antelopes at USC, and now The Squirrels at Trustus. Aesop would be proud, George Orwell would applaud the use of animals for satire, and Aristophanes would endorse anything that speaks truth to power… but are we now at the stage where we have to disguise our dissatisfaction with the world via costumes, makeup, and allegory?

For the second time in as many weeks, Midlands theatre-goers have had the opportunity to enjoy talented performers dressed in absurd costumes, acting out insightful and eloquent dialogue that touches on vitally important social issues while dressed in outlandish, fantastical costumes. USC’s thought-provoking production of The Antelope Party featured a real-life subculture - cosplaying fans of the cartoon series My Little Pony - and imagined a near-future where these whimsical outcasts are infiltrated and persecuted by a fascist neighborhood watch group. Hot on the heels of what I described as both an acid trip and a darkly comedic and subversive allegory, Trustus Theatre now offers for our consideration the life of squirrels: occasionally cute, occasionally annoying creatures that store away food for leaner times, and sometimes war with each other over resources when those times do finally turn lean.

Martha Hearn, making a long-overdue mainstage directorial debut, has pulled out all the stops for this chilling and cautionary tale of race and class struggle, only partially disguised by author Robert Askins as a fable about backyard wildlife. Askins was the mad genius behind 2017’s Hand to God, the possessed-puppet play in which Hearn acted alongside Jonathan Monk and Patrick Dodds, both of whom join her here as scurrilous squirrels.

Clad in anthropomorphic costumes from Rachel Turner - these feature teeny ears and massive squirrel tails that never come unattached no matter how physical the activity may get - and makeup that suggests squirrel features without covering up the human face underneath, eight actors portray ordinary squeaking, nut-gathering little rodents. Yet the crises that they confront are of vital life and death importance to them just as ours are to us, and the performers play everything straight, with as much earnestness, and depth of emotion as they might devote to a work by Ibsen, O’Neill or Williams.

The set-up is a nuclear family, headed by Sciurius (Terrance Henderson), a grizzled alpha male who has seen five winters, and stored away a fortune in hidden nuts. Adopted daughter Rodentia (Abigail McNeely) alternately flatters and flirts with her “daddy,” much to the chagrin of her step-mamma (OG Trustus company member Erin Wilson) who conveniently is named Mammalia - the names come from actual phylum and genus terms for squirrels, as explained to the audience by a narrating human scientist (Monk, who doubles as devious provocateur Scuridae.) Meanwhile daughter Chordata (Courtney Sims) has brought home new beau Carolinensis (Patrick Dodds) who has three strikes against him already: he’s a red-tailed Fox Squirrel not an Eastern Gray, his people are not “from around here,” being immigrants from over by the 7-11, and he lives in the humblest upper branches of the tree with others of his (tail) color (Nicole Perez and Olivia Wamai, effective in squeaking but mainly non-speaking roles.)

When Carolinensis (a random Latin zoological term to most, but it means that the species was first ID’d here in the Carolinas) dares to ask for a handout, i.e. food for his starving fellows from the abundant riches that Sciurus worked hard all of his life to amass, it’s pretty clear what is meant and who is being satirized/castigated. Yet Hearn and her creative team have gone all out to fill in details. Actors employ character-appropriate accents that reflect the vaguely southeastern U.S. setting, and their costumes - OK, apart from tails and ears - are analogues for their human counterparts. Dodds, the voice of the proletariat for example, is dressed in a working man’s overalls, and speaks with a simple Texas/Tennessee twang. Chordata looks more like a schoolgirl, and speaks with the languorous drawl of a privileged homecoming queen, while McNeely has a much more modern sound to her delivery, and sports a playful ragamuffin look. Wilson as the clan matriarch projects a sort of Junior League-ish vibe, and Monk wears a garish suit reminiscent of a vaudevillian or snake oil salesman, which his character may well be. His smooth, soft, vaguely Southern delivery reminded me of the late Leslie Jordan, who would have loved to play this role I bet. Top honors go to Henderson, who has created something unique: a tragic Big Daddy Pollitt-type figure (imagine the gravitas of James Earl Jones) morphed with a comedic, blustering cartoon of a character, as if perhaps Cedric the Entertainer were voicing Foghorn Leghorn. As a director, Henderson has helped other actors find a unique “voice” that works for them, and this voice adds multiple layers to the character. A spiffy 3-piece suit reinforces his status as the establishment figure.

Trustus has benefited from a number of guest designers in recent years, but this set is by Technical Director Corey Langley, and it’s among his best, with a kaleidoscope of limbs and branches and cross sections of trunks establishing the locale. Excellent sound and music design by Jacob Olano and Daniel Machado incorporates banjos, guitars, mandolins, and snippets of songs from a host of sources including Shovels & Rope and Cage the Elephant, reflecting the sylvan setting while often implying impending menace - there’s even a very appropriate echo of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” And if that sounds funny, it should as there is a lot of humor in this show, as well as a lot of thought and wit in even the tiniest of details, such as the surrounding world being referred to as the “squirreld,” and Henderson’s braggadocious claims of fighting off a hawk; “it was a bluejay” counters long-suffering Mamma.

Laura Anthony Robbie’s lighting design is called on to establish some crazy locations and set up some horrific moods, often very quickly, and does so convincingly. Patrick Michael Kelly’s staging of fearsome fight scenes are, naturally, the best squirrel-fight choreography seen in this city in recent memory - but seriously, something that might be absurd becomes gripping.

Apart from celebrating the theatre’s conscious embracing of its longtime tradition of presenting shows that are not well-known in Columbia, that are unlikely to be produced at the community level, and that shake up established norms, I must also mention the newly upgraded drink selection at Trustus. I’ve often mentioned that the original Assembly Street location was where many Columbians got their first taste of Rolling Rock, and the current bar area has undergone many incarnations, from after-show watering hole to a never-entirely realized piano bar. Craft beer was introduced along the way, and Trustus was the first place that I ever had the chance to try Green Man Porter, which is back along with many other selections (I spotted what looked like a Left Hand Nitro Stout and a Hazy IPA), thanks to bar manager Richard Kiraly.

With overtones and influences of everything from Watership Down to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the script by Askins is like a tour of how Western civilization has used animal imagery and characterizations for satirical purposes, especially when the target of the satire wields power. Placards reading “All squirrels matter” and “Make the drey gray again” (dray being a squirrel’s nest) give us just a hint of where we’re going here, and the nuance and detail that’s devoted to translating our world into, well, the little warring critters’ “squirreld,” is impressive. And as above, there’s all the comedy that one expects from satire, as well as the tragedy that one might expect from a story about a struggle for diminishing resources. Yet the words that continue to resonate with me are words like chilling, prescient, ominous, and frightening. What would happen if we didn’t cover our satire with humor and the pretense that it’s just about little animals?

The Squirrels runs two more weekends, tonight through Sunday, May 3 at Trustus Theatre; visit http://trustus.org/event/the-squirrels/ for ticket information.

~ August Krickel