In her director’s notes, Emma Rice, Artistic Director of Kneehigh Theatre, writes of a creature from Scottish and Irish folklore called the Selkie.  This is a seal who sheds her skin, assumes human form, and dances at the beach. In some versions of the tale the Selkie is kidnapped by a man, has children, and lives among the humans. Eventually, however, she locates her seal skin, puts it on, and jumps back into the ocean forevermore.

Rice connects this folk tale to her wonderful multi-media production Brief Encounter, which, after a tour and an off-Broadway run, played at Studio 54 from last September through just after New Years. Based on a Noel Coward play that was made into a movie (directed by David Lean in 1945), the story is about a woman in a stable but unsatisfying marriage who meets a charming doctor at a train station. He, too, is in an unsatisfying marriage, and the two fall desperately in love. Their family obligations and the rules of the times in which they live, however, force them to abandon their passion, and go back to their uninspiring but proper lives. The end.

The bare plot, however, is the coat rack upon which Rice and company hang their apparently bottomless bag of theatrical tricks. All the actors sing and play instruments (music by Noel Coward), all but the two leads perform multiple roles, and there are puppets, clown bits, magic tricks, and authentic-looking black and white movies into and out of which characters jump at will. In one climactic scene, the two lovers literally swing from chandeliers, and while their acrobatic skills might not be sufficient to get them into Cirque Du Soleil, it shows the characters’ passion in a novel, exciting way. And I especially loved two beautiful clowns, a tall blonde woman with impossibly voluptuous buttocks, and her shorter, younger, somewhat mousier friend. Their gently comic interactions as workers in the train station refreshment stand enchanted me.

Despite a scene in a row boat and some filmed interludes with water, I didn’t notice any Selkies in the production. Still, I can’t stop thinking about these creatures who abandon something of themselves to live in the human world of compromise and obligation.  I think about my friends and colleagues; the teacher who dances in a glittery dress in ballroom competitions, the computer consultant who collects bizarre audio equipment, and the attorney who plays guitar and sings his songs in coffee houses. I’m the teacher who does magic shows, performs in an improv group, and sings show tunes in the shower.

Sometimes while measuring my life with coffee spoons, I wonder if my students know who I am. Shall I jump on the desk and play kazoo? Shall I sing “Twin Soliloquies” as both Nellie and Emile? Shall I up and swing from the fixtures, shading my students from the light with my impossibly voluptuous buttocks?

Do I dare to show my seal skin? Do you?

“Broadway Fred” appears every Wednesday.

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