In Tandem Theatre

Chris Flieller doesn’t literally say he and his wife Jane have a picture in their heads that sums up the attitude of their theater company, In Tandem, but there’s the implication that the cover image from this year’s marketing materials might be close. The shot’s taken at a sharp canted angle, and he’s leaning the opposite direction against a school desk, wearing a tuxedo and saluting the camera with a martini glass and a smile. Above, the words “In a Class By Itself” are splashed over his head – not a rigid theme for the season, he says, but more a way for the audience to think of the sort of fare In Tandem’s offered over the past 16 years.

“It does say a bit about who we are,” Flieller said. “There’s a certain amount of frivolity to what we do, but there’s also quite a bit of sophistication. We tend to run the gamut.”

That’s certainly true for this year’s four main shows: a dramatic mystery, a raucous holiday favorite, a one-man epic comedy and a structurally brilliant pair of one-acts about unsticking yourself from your past. Flieller says one of the determining factors of how they pick plays for their season is whether or not it demands their attention – as he puts it, “Does it reach up off the page and grab you?” – but many of this season’s plays were ones he, Jane or the company had a bit of history with. “This year, we reached back into our past – both our collective past and our personal pasts – in terms of show’s we’d seen and liked or done and wanted to do again, with a little bit better perspective having years of experience.”

The one sort-of-exception is the show they’re opening their season with this week: Burying the Bones, a comparatively recent drama by M.E.H. Lewis set in the period immediately following South Africa’s apartheid regime. It follows Mae (Malkia Stampley), a woman whose missing husband (Di’Monte Henning) appears in her dreams and sends her on a mission to discover how he died, despite the objections of her sister (Bria Cloyd) and the obstacles she discovers upon investigating with the newly instated Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Flieller, the production’s director, says Mae begins the play unaware of the larger secrets that loom over her husband’s disappearance – most notably, that he was involved in the anti-apartheid movement, and that a white Afrikaner police officer, Gideon (Mark Corkins) has been implicated in his death, though he vehemently denies it.

“[Gideon] has been accused of killing her husband by torture,” Flieller said. “And he swears up and down that he tortured him but he didn’t kill him. Somebody else, somewhere, somehow, killed him.

“The more Mae learns about the situation, and people’s relationships with each other, and the husband, and the sister, and the policeman, it becomes a much bigger story than she ever thought it could be,” Flieller added. “It’s an amazing play.”

Burying the Bones was first produced by Chicago’s Stage Left Theatre in 2004, but it caught Flieller’s attention when it was being produced by the Detroit Repertory Theatre in early 2012 – almost by accident. He says he was in the city to visit his in-laws and just happened to pick up a flier for the play; the premise interested him, and after looking closer into the production determined it’d be a perfect fit for In Tandem.

“One of the things that really attracted me to this piece was its refusal to come down on any one particular side,” Flieller said. “It’s a very morally ambiguous piece, and I think as an audience member it’s really going to challenge you to look at both sides of any question. A lot of people in this play are doing the wrong things for the right reasons and so when the power shifts and the historical context shifts – as it ultimately did – suddenly those people who were the heroes of the culture are now the villains of the culture, and vice-versa.” And as much as that ambiguity, Flieller was attracted to Lewis’ focus on cultural details in the piece – he says she went to school for anthropology, so dissecting and re-creating cultures is the sort of thing that comes naturally.

It’s quite the complex, interesting show to start a season with, and Flieller says that’s no accident. “We put it in the October slot because it’s a mystery, in a certain way, and it’s a beautifully written piece by a rather young playwright. … So it’s going to be an interesting mindtrip for the audience.”

Burying the Bones opens Friday, Oct. 4 and runs through Oct. 27, with performances at 7:30 p.m. weeknights, 8 p.m. Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25, $23 for seniors/students, and can be purchased at (414) 271-1371 or In Tandem’s online box office.

And don’t forget: Burying the Bones is only the first show in its class. Read on for information on the rest of In Tandem’s mainstage season. In addition to these three shows, In Tandem will be having two fundraising shows: The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, a series of depositions filed by eight of Santa’s reindeer in a sexual harassment case against St. Nick (performances Dec. 9 and 16, tickets $35), and their biennial production of Jesus Christ Superstar, presented in concert staging in the sanctuary of Calvary Church, right upstairs from the Tenth Street Theatre (performances March 28, 29 and 30, tickets $25).

A Cudahy Caroler Christmas, by Anthony Wood with musical arrangements by Jamie Johns and additional lyrics by Lee Becker and Dylan Bolin
Dates: Nov. 29 – Jan. 5
Synopsis: In classic getting-the-band-back-together style, the loveable Stasch must rally the disbanded members of a community singing group called the Cudahy Carolers for one last performance, five years after they last performed together.
Production Notes: This marks In Tandem’s eighth production of their infamous Christmas show, first performed in 2001, and the second in a row since taking a break for three years from 2009 to 2011. Chris Flieller will return as Stasch along with a mix of new and returning cast members.
Chris’ Thoughts: “We had a lot of returning people who had been pining away for the Carolers ever since it left, and they were very, very happy to have it return. My wife says she was out taking tickets one night [last year] and a woman comes up to the ticket booth and she grabs my wife’s hands and says ‘Thank God. Thank God the Carolers are back.’ People are very emotionally attached to the show.”

Chesapeake, by Lee Blessing
Dates: Feb. 21 – March 16
Synopsis: When a conservative senatorial hopeful builds a campaign platform out of eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, a performance artist attempts to fight back by stealing the candidate’s prized Chesapeake Bay Retriever – only for things to go horribly, hilariously wrong.
Production Notes: Chesapeake is a one-man show, with the lead actor playing everything from the politician to the artist to the dog. In Tandem’s tapped favorite performer Matt Daniels for the task.
Chris’ Thoughts: “[In 2001,] Chesapeake opened at Renaissance Theaterworks. It was two weeks after September 11, and everybody was losing their shit. … Jane and I went and we were, like, two of six people in the audience, and I saw the most amazing show I had ever seen in my life. … I’ve always been heartbroken at the injustice of so few people seeing such a great show.”

1959 Pink Thunderbird: Laundry and Bourbon | Lone Star, by James McLure
Dates: April 25 – May 18
Synopses: In Laundry and Bourbon, three small-town Texan women gossip over their laundry and gradually reveal their inner worries – most notably those of Elizabeth, who hasn’t seen her Vietnam vet-husband in three days. In Lone Star, her husband, Roy, and his brother Ray are drinking behind a local bar, but their night turns soberer quickly as secrets are revealed.
Production Notes: 1959 Pink Thunderbird is a combined version of two one-acts by McLure; while they’ve been performed separately in town, In Tandem will be staging the first professional production of both together. Chris and Jane Flieller will direct the men’s and women’s one-acts, respectively.
Chris’ Thoughts: “They’re both stand-alone pieces, but after McLure had written Lone Star he wanted to carry on the themes from the female perspective. … They’re both comedies, but they have serious underpinnings, looking at themes of maturity, letting go of the past, looking toward the future and what it takes to become unstuck. They’re really, really amazing pieces of playwriting.”