Theater and art gallery opens in Beacon
Vet/Rep, the theater company that moved from Cornwall to Beacon last year and is transforming the former bank building at 139 Main St. into a showcase for talented veterans and their family members, has been rechristened Savage Wonder.
This weekend (May 9-10) kicks off the institution’s inaugural season of productions in The Parlor, a 50-seat room. Most of the staged readings will be presented every Saturday for a month, although exceptions include the sold-out debut tonight (May 9) of The Bald Soprano, by Eugene Ionesco, three future dates and a six-week run of World War II veteran Noel Coward’s scandalous 1920s comedy, Fallen Angels.
All the performers are members of the Actors’ Equity union, which includes Broadway-caliber professional actors and stage managers.
On Saturday (May 10), Savage Wonder will unveil Savage Wonderground, a 4,000-square-foot basement art gallery, and The Grape Rebellion, a wine and dessert bar. The first exhibit is Radical Fun, curated by gallery director Jeannie Freilich, who commutes from New York City. It runs through July 6.
A 60-seat theater, named The Kristofferson (after Kris, who turned down a position teaching literature at West Point, spurned the Army to write country songs and earned the wrath of his military family) is scheduled to open next year. A second bar and another main stage with 125 seats is planned for 2027.
“One reason for the rebranding is that every time I spoke to groups about Vet/Rep, I had to make it clear that we’re not providing art therapy — we rarely do war stories and not everyone onstage is a veteran,” says Chris Meyer, founder and artistic director. “We’re also going beyond theater by adding the art center and wine component.”
Meyer came up with Savage Wonder during a deployment in New Mexico (he served in the Army for 14 years after 9-11): “It’s where the warrior and artist intersect.” The revamped logo, which resembles a paint, wine or blood splotch, is a Rorschach test. “Our brand’s spirit animal is the octopus, which encapsulates what the Savage Wonder thought experiment is about: intimate, absurd, whimsical and jarring.”
To expand the talent pool and repertoire, immediate family members of veterans may act onstage, direct a play or contribute a script. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde (coming in June), makes the cut because the playwright’s son served in the British military.
Beyond the veteran thread, many of the season’s themes convey a farcical sensibility. The absurdist Bald Soprano, from 1950, contains several exchanges with nonsensical dialogue. Nicolay Gogol’s Inspector General, scheduled for October, premiered in 1836 and satirizes Russian bureaucracy.
The son of actors, Meyers’ flair for the dramatic enhances the staged readings. At the launch party on May 3, a hubbub interrupted his presentation and startled the audience. It turned out to be two actors shaking things up with a short performance set in a VA hospital waiting room to nowhere.
“We’re not sitting around or using music stands, we can stage the hell out of our readings,” says Meyer. “We’ve had five-minute fight scenes; people enter through a window or trip and fall into the wall. Anything can happen.”
Savage Wonder is located at 139 Main St. in Beacon. The Bald Soprano will be performed at 7 p.m. on May 17, May 24 and May 31; tickets are $25 at savagewonder.org. Radical Fun will open at The Savage Wonderground on Saturday (May 10) from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
