Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – History made fun: Out of the Forest’s BORIS III irreverently illuminates a little known episode in WWII’s web of events

• By drediman
• May 20, 2024
• No Comments

New York theatergoers know that spring is well underway when 59E59 Theaters’s Brits Off-Broadway festival starts churning out performances. One of the centerpieces of this year’s crop of Fringe offerings from across the pond is Out of the Forest Theatre and Something for the Weekend’s production of The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria by Sasha Wilson and Joseph Cullen. In short, the play chronicles the little known World War II episode of a Balkan monarch — the titular King Boris III — who mysteriously died in 1943 upon refusing to deport his Jewish citizens.

Although not much is concretely known about the circumstances surrounding Boris’s refusal to comply with Hitler’s commands, that hasn’t stopped the folks at Out of the Forest Theatre from inquisitively scratching the surface in its full tilt theatrical investigation of this fascinating man and his place in history. If anything, this “blind sight” has given them the leeway to convey the events with extreme irreverence. This is history made fun. Ultimately, however, the show contemplates the slippery nature of history and questions the blind faith many of us put on accounts we’re fed about historical figures — if anything, the work portrays Boris III as an indecisive, morally ambiguous leader. In cadence, the piece calls to mind Operation Mincemeat, the little musical that could that recently won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Indeed, in addition to its relentless flippancy, Boris III is also scrappy and music-driven, using satire to express the haphazard ways in which history has a tendency of unfolding.

Boris III has been directed by Hannah Hauer-King, who has given the piece an appropriately resourceful, free-wheeling staging that fully embraces a Monty Python-esque style of humor. It’s a fast-paced production that has the terrific, hard-working ensemble members each skillfully covering multiple roles, covering plenty of narrative ground over the course of the show’s 90-minute run time. Throughout, The performances are alive with giddy glee — the multi-tasking actors obviously have a lot of fun performing the piece — particularly when they pick up their instruments to infuse live music into the proceedings (their renditions of Balkan folk songs are especially potent).

RECOMMENDED

THE BRIEF LIFE & MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF BORIS III, KING OF BULGARIA
Off-Broadway, Play
59E59 Theaters
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through May 25