Pony World Theatre Presents Big Story Small

An evening spent with Pony World Theatre’s Big Story Small production left us hot, bothered and uncomfortably aware of our rudimentary knowledge of theatre classics. The folks at Pony World, dictated by the principles of “original and uncompromising” theatre, had put together a short run - Thursday through Saturday only - of eight compact vignettes based on theatre classics, among them The Chairs, Death of Salesman and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

We were hot, literally, sweltering after sitting in Balagan Theatre’s tiny underground space last Thursday (a sweet, sweet summer night, if you remember). Not a big deal, rather enjoyable actually, the theatre stuffed with an appreciative crowd out to support local theatre.

The bothersome part stemmed from the often unhindered, explosive delivery of the troupe. With little but a small stage and a few props, the actors commanded their characters into life. Sometimes this delivery wavered the line between “projection” and outright shouting, and we found ourselves appreciating the more simmering, subdued delivery of John Kobasic in Death of a Salesman, or Pamala Mijatov in Les Liasons Dangereuses. Pony World is little theatre with a big attitude, plus the confidence to channel the energies of local playwrights into a possibly polarizing outcome, to take on a project directed towards those who already know and love theatre.

So what does we get out of a grouping of theatre classics distilled into “potent little packages” when we haven’t studied a lick of theatre? A strong sense of inadequacy, apparently. We left wishing we could have better appreciated the craftsmanship of the Big Story Small project; that nuanced transformation of what was into what we had just seen.