A funny thing happened on the way to the basement

JOHN YI/YH Sendrow and Argotsinger cover Springsteen-who knew marriage was so much fun?

The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine reminds us that in times of loss, we may take solace in that which remains. Specifically, when love rots away and dies, there is still limitless mutual disgust. Disgust, however, has its limits, and in its absence we must be strong and count on sociopathic aggression. Alas, this kind of sadistic behavior never lasts long, and when it finally fades, we can only turn to wild and horny sex.

We learn these lessons from Ernest (B. Brian Argotsinger, MC '00), a neurotic obsessive-compulsive hyper-nerd, and his newlywed wife, Ernestine (Abigail Sendrow, TD '00), a woman so nebulously out-there that she makes Don Quixote look like Al Gore on Ritalin. Through a series of scenes and musical vignettes, we get the chance to witness the contorted nature of their relationship firsthand and see how it evolves from a fledgling mismatch to a hilariously dysfunctional psychosis of a marriage. "I forgot you were here," one says to the other after gazing out the window. "It was like a dream."

The play can't help but betray its roots in improvisational theatre, an element that works both for and against it. Like improv, the show is subject to momentum shifts that come from differing levels of intensity from scene to scene. One scene will be a frenzy of activity and excitement; the next will be drawn out and monotone. This variation keeps the audience guessing, but it also gets a little frustrating when your adrenaline level is bobbing up and down. The dialogue is fairly clever and at times pretty funny, but it relies heavily on wackiness and cliché. Luckily, the actors are adept at physical comedy, turning a bronze script into solid gold. A dozen engaging and snappy skits make up for the few that tend to drag on.

Most enjoyable are the musical interludes where we get to see Argotsinger and Sendrow enact scenes from their everyday existence that are basically glorified clown acts. The players pull off some spiffy quick-changes, and a couple of the scenes are so fast that sometimes they don't have enough time to get their pants on--so they just carry them along. "Hell, who needs pants when you've got talent," Pops would always say.

Director Luca Borghese, ES '00, does a good job of picking music to accompany each scene. The program ranges from a Sinatra-Pavarotti duet of My Way to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor to Closer by Nine Inch Nails. The music is an integral part of a show that is, in some sense, just one long dance between two people who were born to never dance with one another.

Both acting performances are commendable, and it's hard not to notice Argotsinger's potential to be a superb comedic actor. He manages a subtle portrayal of a character that's a cross between Woody Allen and Jack Torrance from The Shining. His Ernest is totally believable, an impressive feat considering no one even remotely like that combination has ever nor will ever exist. Also contributing to the interest value of his performance is the fact that he sounds a mighty lot like Matthew Broderick.

The set is junk--but it's a bunch of really weird, old junk that's fun to look at. The one-room stage is what the couple called their "basement home," and it's littered with every knick-knack you thought your parents and grandparents threw away before you were born. There are stacks of ancient typewriters, turntables, TVs, radios, viewfinders, pewter boar's heads, and a wood-burning furnace. The cabinets and wardrobe closets are straight out of the 1940s, and the centerpiece of the table is a three-level candy dish filled with gumdrops, M&Ms, and Hostess Snowballs. The most intriguing prop of all is the terribly gaudy ornamented log/basket that Ernestine brings for Ernest as a housewarming gift. The director must agree because there's a spotlight on it for the whole show.

Ernest and Ernestine is by and large an entertaining show. Some parts could have been a little shorter, like the Risky Business-esque Springsteen lip sync that Ernest does while he's sweeping. A yelling match or two could have been cut just to save the audience's ears, and they could have let the audience eat the candy at the end. Oh well, either way you'll leave chuckling.

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