A dangerous expedition brings out the clown in Northside actor’s latest role
Northsider Elise Langer, right, is a British explorer in the Ten Thousand Things production of the play, Men On Boats. Photo by Tom Wallace
By Kiya Darden, North News Intern
Anyone would expect an actor to be obsessed with the big stage. But Elise Langer finds her passion acting within mere inches of the audience.
The Northsider’s acting career has taken her from Paris, France, to San Francisco, California. In the unique theater culture of Minneapolis, she has found her home.
Langer is currently starring in a new play called Men On Boats, produced by Ten Thousand Things theater. The play is a humorous retelling of a 1869 historical expedition through the Grand Canyon. The play follows a group of colonial explorers sent by the American Government to claim and name the wonders they find as they move chaotically down a rapid river.
The catch is that the playwright specified that each of the white male characters should be played by people who are anything but, resulting in a rarely mixed queer, colored, and female cast. Langer’s character is somewhat of a comedic relief in the midst of the chaos.
“Everybody else has been hired to do this mission and to explore the land, and make maps, and give things names, and colonize basically. But the guy I'm playing is more of a tourist. He's just kind of there for fun.”
Men on Boats will travel through North Minneapolis when the cast of 10 performs two shows at the Capri Theater, March 7-8 at 7:30 p.m.
Through her passion for genuine connections and storytelling, it is clear that Langer is not looking for a big stage but for a good time.
Her main role as Goodman, a 19th-century British explorer, is played with gusto in full costume down to the dusty white pith helmet. Her second role as Mr. Asa comes at the end of the play, as the first person to greet the remaining explorers who escape the canyon.
“Elise brought her clowniness and her heart to the show,” Director Joy Dolo said following a performance at Sabathani Center in south Minneapolis. “I don’t think anyone could play Goodman like her because she can do the nuances of comedy but also the real stakes, of like being stuck on this mission with a bunch of Americans.”
Langer moved from Paris, France, to the San Francisco Bay Area during high school and spent her first years in the U.S. in school theater programs. It wasn’t until after college, in 2006, that she took her first theater internship at Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis. The theater company folded in 2008, but her time there sparked a love for experimental theater.
Langer favors what is called devised theater, which involves no scripts, heavy improvisation, and writing everything down as you go. While devised theater is not something she practices professionally much anymore, Langer has found a similar feeling in Ten Thousand Things theater.
Similar to devised theater, Ten Thousand Things takes a more relaxed approach to staging, with no lighting, minimal props, and little to no set design. For MEN ON BOATS, there was a range of three props used throughout the entire show. A few fake boulders, wooden sticks that doubled as oars and rifles, and a small campfire.
In a large cinderblock room at the Sabathi Center, a fiddler played in the background, and expressive acting drew the audience into the scene of the rushing river.
“It's really great when a theater's entire mission is not only about the audience, which is very rare,” Langer said. “But also about the story more than the ‘Oh, that looked cool.’So the audience just comes with us on this journey and suspends their disbelief. And if we tell them that that's a rock, it's going to be a rock. And if we tell them that that's the Grand Canyon, it's the Grand Canyon.”
Langer enjoys this type of theater because of the potential for joy and genuine connection. Not only is it important to her that the audience can understand the story, but she also wants them to enjoy the social experience. In their case, the absence of additional glitz and glam allows for a clearer interaction between the actors and audience, she said.
“It's kind of a privilege to be able to see the audience,” she said. “We're not used to that. Usually in regular theater, you've got lights in your eyes, and that's all you can see, and you just see your fellow castmates, and you don't get to see people's reactions… I just love being able to see the faces.”