The first scripted performance in colonial America took place in a Virginia tavern on Aug. 27, 1665. Not a line of it remains, not a character name, not a whisper of plot. Even its genre — comedy, satire, arboreal drama? — is lost to time. But its title, “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” has survived. So has the court case it precipitated. Because as long as there has been theater in America, there has been someone around to hate on it. The actors were promptly arrested, and what we know about the play we know from court records.
These dregs of history are the fermenting agent for “Ye Bear & Ye Cubb” at 59E59 Theaters. Those responsible for the original were charged with public wickedness. The devisers of this new version, which includes a cream pie and several fart jokes, don’t really know how to behave, either. Created by No. 11 Productions and directed by Ryan Emmons, “Ye Bear” is a fantasia on colonial themes — messy, overstated, indifferently competent. It is also tenacious and generous, with a sweet-tempered approach to its audience interactions.
After an unnecessary dream sequence (so much in the script, credited to six company members, is unnecessary), the action begins in Fowkes’ Tavern. William Darby (Steven Conroy, who also plays a version of himself) has written a play, and he recruits two friends, Cornelius Watkinson (Anthony Michael Martinez) and Philip Howard (Erin Lamar), and an unknown person in a bear costume (or possibly an actual bear, it’s unclear) to perform it there. After the players are arrested, they are asked to perform it again, in full costume, before the court.
So far, this matches the historical record. But while the court reports are silent on the contents of the play, No. 11 voices an imagined version, with lines like: “The goose is loose/by the beard of Zeus/the fawn is gone/are we amidst a con?” (The play’s name references Ben Jonson’s masques, a dubious inspiration.) These sequences are, at best, embarrassing, as is the alliteration-heavy courtroom drama that ensues. Clearly, this verbiage is bad on purpose — which doesn’t make it any easier to endure. Every character stops the show for a monologue. Few of them should. If the script reveals a decent knowledge of theater history, it never offers immersion in what life might have been like in early America, what excitement these players might have felt or the risks they took — knowingly or otherwise — in giving this performance.
