One of Surrealist painter Rene Magritte’s most famous paintings portrays an elegant brown pipe painted boldly on a white canvas, hovering over the words: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” meaning, “This is not a pipe.” Just as the painting itself is not an actual pipe but rather a 2-D image, “This is Not a Pipe Dream” is merely a play — a self-proclaimed fantasy.
“This is Not a Pipe Dream,” presented by the Theatre and Interpretation Center this weekend, is based on Magritte’s childhood. Born at the turn of the 20th century in Belgium, Magritte discovered his love of art at a young age. The play depicts life with Magritte’s mother — who committed suicide when Magritte was 14 — and his father who insisted that Magritte’s affinity for painting was a “pipe dream,” an unattainable fantasy.
“Ceci n’est pas une pipe” is an allusion to his father’s statement and an analysis of the arbitrary relationships between an object and its name. The narrator of the play repeats this theme by insisting that the play is not real life, and the lines are merely “words, words, words.”
“He had a different way of looking at the world,” says Communication junior Steve Gensler, who plays Magritte. “He showed you things that weren’t possible so you could wonder at the things that are possible.”
Throughout the show, fleeting images and props refer to Magritte’s paintings. In one scene, a nervous young Magritte veils himself and his girlfriend with cloth so he can summon the courage to kiss her — an allusion to Magritte’s painting “The Lovers,” where two lovers are locked in an embrace but masked by white sheets that are windblown against their faces.
“Wonder” and “magic” are buzzwords among the cast when they discuss the play. In “Castle of the Pyrenees,” Magritte depicts a monstrous boulder hovering midair above the ocean, an image that is echoed comically on stage as an actor stumbles around carrying a similar boulder. The play seeks to accomplish on stage what Magritte did on an easel, creating the impossible and “showing what is by showing what is not.”
“Magritte as an artist looked at our world from a different point of view,” says the director, Theater lecturer Lynn Kelso. “We’re always trying to look at life from a different point of view. The play is not linear. There are moments of realism, moments of magic realism, moments of mystery. The form will surprise.”
The set itself alludes to the art of Magritte with a blue background inspired by the sky in several of Magritte’s paintings and a painted wood grain floor that reflects Magritte’s attention to detail. The costumes are also painted, and reflect characters from paintings such as the anonymous bowler-hat-wearing men in “Chef-D’Oruvre.”
“We wanted the stage to be static, just like a painting,” says Kelso. “When the play begins the life is breathed into it by the actors.”
After the weekend of performance at the Barber Theatre, the cast of five will perform at Chicago area middle and elementary schools. The colorful atmosphere of the play, which includes slapstick comedy, makes the play accessible to children. However, the script contains universal messages to appeal to all ages, says Kelso.
“The audience has to feel it and not be embarrassed,” says Communication sophomore Allison Hirschlag, the narrator of the play. “It’s a challenge to get (the audience) out of the cynical adult way of thinking and laugh like the 5-year-old next to them.”
“Pipe Dream” invites the audience to step into Magritte’s surrealistic world, but also reminds them it’s only a play, they are only paintings, and “Ceci n’est pas une Pipe.”
Medill freshman Crystal Nicholson is a writer for PLAY. She can be reached at [email protected].