The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: No. 11 Productions’ Pair

By Dennis W.

What happens when two artists fall in love and become one artist, a collaboration? Pair playing at the 59E59 Theaters written and produced by No. 11 Productions gives us a glimpse of how two pop artists merged their talents and produced large-scale sculptures of everyday objects: a clothespin, a trowel,  a doughnut, and one of their most well-known, a spoon and cherry.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Brugge met, fell in love, and then had to wrestle with each other to find out how or if they could work together. Pair is a flight of fancy about the artists’ lives and how they sparred over the meaning of everyday objects and how they relate to our society.

It’s also about a pear grasping at freedom after falling out of a fruit bowl and searching the globe to find out where she belongs and why she is.  

Claes Oldenberg is played deftly by Steven Conroy (No. 11’s Coosje) who is very comfortable in Oldenberg’s shoes as he navigates through his courtship and marriage, both legal and artistic. His delivery is understated and feels genuine. Julie Congress (No. 11’s A Christmas Carol) plays Coosje van Bruggen and in contrast, is sharper with a more aggressive style. The two blend to make a believable couple who start out at opposites but end up on the same page. The Pear is played by Emily Bautista (“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin”).  Pear seems to appear on a whim floating through the play carrying a suitcase of souvenirs collected along her travels as she stops to chronicle her search.

Ryan Emmons’s (Babcock Theatre’s Company) direction and original music and sound design by Enrico De Trisio (No. 11’s The Oregon Trail: The Quest for the West!) join together to create the whimsical atmosphere of the production. The 3-dimensional sketch pad backdrop by Seth Byrum brings a sense of a work-in-progress as we watch a relationship grow.  

Pair engages the audience in a whimsically unique look at Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s relationship, philosophy, and life. It’s definitely worth the ticket price whether you’re a fan of the two pop artists or just looking for an interesting 70 minutes of theater.