Theater of the Imperfect and Impossible

The thing that drives me crazy about theater/live performance, is that it is inherently NEVER PERFECT, or rather, it highlights and revels in everything that is imperfect about being human. Of course this is where the beauty of performance lies as well -- spaces between the elements/layers that allow room for spontaneous, magical experiences. Performers hit the stage every night with a different body, a different energy, and a different audience; even within a set structure the event that coalesces can blossom into a different creature every time.

But then there is the grappling with the impossible, that can cause someone like me to develop an ulcer or burst a blood vessel in my head.

Basil Twist's Dogugaeshi is one of those shows that valiantly and beautifully wrestles with the imperfect that verges on the impossible. Commissioned by Japan Society, it premiered there in 2004, and it's back for a remount before it tours to Japan next month. It is, hands down, a unique show and beautiful -- comprised of probably about 100 gorgeously painted sliding screens set in complex systems of frames, Twist as his 3 puppeteers unravel a journey of images from old and new Japan. Once in a while a white fox puppet appears and interacts with the sliding and dividing pictures adding a lot of charm to the piece (interesting to note the audiences need/desire for a recognizable "character"). It is not only constantly changes images, though, that inspire awe. The multi-layered soundscape full of fun, surprising montages and live shamisen/koto improvisation by Yumiko Tanaka (amazing woman) and the elegant projection design (Peter Flaherty, who seems to have a monopoly on this kind of work) work in confluence with the screens for this potentially mind-blowing experience.I say potentially because, well, it is clear, without a doubt, that this is a very special, unique work of art, but having seen probably a dozen performances of it, I don't think I've seen it executed perfectly. And ok, so what is "perfection" in this kind of work? For one thing, the physical execution of a very complex sequence of moving objects. It is a fact that physical objects are clumsy. But, unlike the volatile energy and emotional states of a living breathing actor, the objects' characteristics are more predictable and reliable and consistent. So on one hand it seems perfectly possible to expect inanimate objects to achieve perfection in a way that living breathing humans cannot.

Actually in the week it's taken me to write this darned post, the show has really blossomed -- as if these painted panels are now breathing. Pretty darned amazing. Showing for two more nights. Sold out, but you should try to get waitlisted.

wade in retards

Fall is officially upon us. I need a light jacket or sweatshirt now. And the performance season has commenced. Which means a lot of manic running around for me.

To kick off the fall, I was fortunate enough to see Jeremy Wade's latest -- a group piece (a quintet to be precise) from the Bessie-winning American choreographer based in Berlin: ...and pulled out their hair at Joyce Soho. Apparently this piece was originally slated for PS122 but for unclear reasons made the move to Soho instead.

The first five minutes of the piece absolutely thrilled me.

When we walked in, there was one man standing on the white marleyed, white-walled stage. He was a rather big man, a rugged handsome type, dressed in a white short sleeve button-down shirt and black tie and slacks. He stood at the edge of the marley and surveyed the audience coming in with shifty eyes, twitching shoulders, and insipidly creepy grin. At times convulsing, and other times leering, he was the very image of a barely checked homicidal child molester or a developmentally impaired sexual deviant of some sort. After a while, 4 others entered upstage left, stumbling haltingly. Those were two women (in short black skirts and white blouses) and two men (in white button-down short sleeves, black shorts and suspenders), all, like our first man, somehow not completely in control of their physical and mental faculties. The group altogether seemed to form a school or society of degenerates, indeed, a grotesque portrayal of our own culture.

Throughout the course of the piece, this team of squealing, drooling freaks tumbled, stumbled, clambered, wrestled, fought, fucked, sniffed and embraced each other, at times demonizing, and at others, coddling each other -- as if they were the purest representation of the human id, bursting with uncontrollable desires. At one point, the performers faced the audience in a line and opened up their faces to an extreme. And their faces remained that way for the rest of the performance, suspended in a state of total shock or an unending yawn or expression of utter vapid idiocy, depending on what you wanted to see. After a while I began to see their wide-open saliva-secreting mouths as body parts as intimate as flowering anuses -- in fact the whole performance seemed to be some twisted inversion of the order imposed on us writhing breathing wild humans by the system we call society.

Though unlike much dance I see this work was very dramatic (in terms of describing a sequence of events and interactions amongst people), it somehow lacked a rhythmic drive to pull the audience from one excruciating portrayal of the human condition to the next. Clocking in at just under an hour, it presented a rich if a bit tired (and very very sweaty) view of human nature.