Three’s company

Triple Espresso began life as a small-scale theatrical revue in Minneapolis in 1996. Seeking an appropriate forum in which to display their own individual creative talents, Michael Pearce Donley, Bob Stromberg and Bill Arnold – three stalwarts of the local arts scene – devised a show which revolved around a character named Hugh Butternut, a lounge-lizard bon vivant who chooses to celebrate his 25th anniversary as resident hedonist at The Triple Espresso in the company of Bobby Dean and Buzz Maxwell, two former colleagues in an ill-fated three-piece variety act.

Over the course of the evening, the three friends reminisce about times past, in the process treating the audience to a virtuoso mix of music, storytelling and comedy. Though such a traditional amalgam of old-school entertainment disciplines would appear somewhat anomalous in today’s climate of “edgy” experimental theatre, audiences world-wide (there are currently six productions running simultaneously across the globe) have greeted the show’s homely virtues with open arms.

New York actor Dane Stauffer, who essays the part of Hugh in the Dublin run of the show, is in no doubt as to why Triple Espresso has struck such a chord.

“First of all, it’s just very funny, and that’s a release valve we all need these days” he says. “If someone’s been to the show and they have a friend or a relative coming to visit, chances are they’ll bring them along to see it as well because they just know they’re going to laugh. Also, we’ve all been doing it for so long at this point that the show has been very finely honed. It’s a very crowd-pleasing experience – there’s music, magic, dancing. In fact, I’ve even incorporated a little bad Irish jig!”

With his languid demeanour and sophisticated sense of wordplay, is the dapper Hugh a particularly enjoyable character to play?

“It’s a tremendously fun part,” Dane enthuses. “I mean, when I was younger, I used to look at silent movies and vaudeville a little wistfully, because they just seemed to have this incredible joy, and I remember feeling that this didn’t really exist anymore. So for those of us who have a little bit of the variety performer in us, it’s kind of a dream come true because we get to do a little bit of everything – we get to sing, we get to tell stories, we get to make faces and tell a few jokes. And that’s all very exhilarating.”

Given Triple Espresso’s debt to the music hall genre, does Dane feel the show sits closer in the cultural firmament to old-school cabaret than it does to any contemporary theatrical trends?

“I think there’s probably a truth to that, alright,” Dane answers. “The show is partly about the three character’s solo acts, and then it’s partly about their collective failures, and that’s where the music hall element comes in. And it’s funny, audiences eat it up and come back and bring their families, because there’s just nothing offensive about it. And I don’t think there’s anything like that anymore particularly. We do pick on people to a certain extent, but it’s not the sort of cruelty you get in stand-up clubs, where people feel the need to go into therapy afterwards. The humour is just very gentle.

“But it’s strange, vaudeville is definitely a reference, but I also find myself thinking of when television first started in the fifties. Producers were drawing on whatever they could to put programming on, and they found themselves going to a lot of people who came out of that whole variety show tradition. I mean, in America you had Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs, Imogen Koka and Red Skelton – those performers had a kind of corny, goofy sense of humour which definitely informs Triple Espresso to a certain extent.”

Ultimately, what’s the thrill of live performance for Dane?

“Jeez, that’s a good question,” he answers, momentarily caught off guard. “I’m finding I have to really think about this, and I’m not sure why. (Pause) I don’t necessarily do it for the applause like I did when I was younger. I mean, we stand out in the lobby and shake peoples’ hands afterwards, and that’s the thing about live performance you don’t get with film – you get to meet the audience and look them in the eye. That’s really a priceless experience.

“Like, just yesterday I took a train out to Sandycove and I went to the little James Joyce museum. I was kind of walking along and still really grappling with the jet-lag and just generally feeling quite weary. So I sat down to have a cup of tea and this man leaned over to me and said, ‘I saw your show last night and it was wonderful’. I thought that was really a great thing. And I suppose what’s wonderful about theatre – whether it’s comedy or drama – is that after the lights go up, we all look around the room and maybe feel we have more common with each other than we suspected. We probably feel less inclined to rush to judgement about everyone else. And if we can accomplish something like that at
the end of each night, we’ve done our job.”