The Mood Room

Annie-B Parson magically blends movement and spoken word in a story about self-care fanatics from 80’s California.

The Mood Room, the latest work renowned Brooklyn-based choreographer Annie-B Parson, is a trip. Part dance, part “spoken opera,” it is based mostly on Guy de Cointet's 1982 play Five Sisters, with occasional excerpts from Chekhov’s classic Three Sisters, and even a couple of lines from The Cherry Orchard (if I am not mistaken). It is set in 1980s California, where five sisters reunite in their childhood home, represented by the beige rectangle of a nearly empty stage covered by a lush carpet (set design is by Lauren Machen). White fringe curtains hang as a backdrop and frame a couple of carpeted staircases leading nowhere, giving a hint to the scale of this family residence. But if you still couldn't tell this is an upper-class Californian lifestyle, this house has a room called “the mood room.”

(L-R) Elizabeth DeMent, Kate Moran, Michelle Sui, and Myssi Robinson
in The Mood Room. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

The mood room remains unseen, but characters retire into it periodically. Maria, who developed an allergy to the sun after her “vacation on a remote island,” finds her only refuge there. Iwan places her red painting there. A workaholic Dolly takes a nap. But there is no reason to suspect that the sisters’ life offstage is any more meaningful than what we see. Sisters come and go, engaging in conversation with each other, mostly discussing their doctors, dieting, the benefits of rest, and their youthful and radiant looks. They sound like a mixture of advertising and quotes of “influencers” of the time (one of them is even mentioned by name—a gossip columnist Rona Barrett). So when they occasionally switch to communicating in bird-like sounds, it doesn’t make much of a difference.          

Enchanting choreography by Annie-B Parson is what makes The Mood Room so mesmerizing. As the sisters talk, they engage in a dialogue with their entire body, adding movement to the verbal communication and emphasizing the alienation effect. It looks like a made-up sign language that only five sisters can understand, but does it convey meaning, or is it just empty movement? For that matter, does their dialogue convey any meaning? “No one changes; no one learns anything” says Annie-B Parson in her director’s note. Yet it is impossible to divert one’s eyes from the hypnotizing performance, greatly enhanced by the superb lighting design (by Joe Levasseur).         

In The Mood Room, the critique of the budding self-care movement of the Reagan Era is apparent. The endless navel-gazing seems pointless and unfortunately rings true today. The predominantly beige and white set, as well as Baille Younkman and Samantha Mcelrath's whimsical costumes, are of the exact same "trendy" color scheme dominating today's most popular Instagram stories. A projection screen obscured by a fringe curtain (video design is by Keith Skretch) shows actresses engaged in actions similar to those on stage, sometimes wearing slightly different costumes, performing in a similar, white-box room. “Am I me or am I double?” says one of the sisters. Nowadays, a lot of us live in two parallel realities, online and offline, so this question has a new edge. The Mood Room is a healthy reminder that, when self-care becomes a lifestyle and the individual focuses exclusively on their own person, they are at risk of losing themself entirely.        

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The Mood Room plays at BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Place, through December 5, 2021. The running time is 1 hour with no intermission. Proof of vaccination and masks required. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30, Friday at 7 and 9, Saturday at 7:30, and Sunday at 3 and 7. Tickets start at $35. For tickets and more information visit bam.org.

The Mood Room is created by Annie-B Parson, based on Five Sisters by Guy de Cointet with additional text from Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Music by Holly Herndon. Sound Design and Recomposition by Mark degli Antoni. Set Design by Lauren Machen. Lighting Design by Joe Levasseur. Costume Design by Baille Younkman and Samantha Mcelrath. Video Design by Keith Skretch. Produced by Big Dance Theater and co-commissioned by The Kitchen, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Carolina Performing Arts/UNC-Chapel Hill, the Walker Art Center, the Wexner Arts Center, and with funds from the Starry Night Fund.

The cast is Elizabeth DeMent, Kate Moran, Michelle Sui, and Myssi Robinson, and Michelle Sui.  

(This review was published on theasy.com on 12.2.21)

Return the Moon

This site-specific dance company’s Zoom experiment hits a lot of the right notes but still seems underdeveloped.

Return the Moon, the newest production of Third Rail Projects, a renowned immersive theatre company (Then She Fell, The Grand Paradise, Ghostlight), is specifically designed for Zoom and is performed in real-time for an audience of 60. I jumped at the opportunity to see how these masters of choreographed narrative in a 360-degree environment would tackle the realm of the digital. The experiment sounds interesting enough in theory but—I won’t lie—the result is somewhat disappointing. Some moments feel sweet and endearing, but the overall impression is of a piece that is still being workshopped.

Return the Moon. Photo by Third Rail Projects.

Return The Moon combines audience interaction (via chat) with poetic imagery and good old storytelling. Only instead of a firepit, we lean towards our computer screen in our darkened rooms, beverage of choice in hand. For the first part, audience members are divided into four groups, each led by a performer. Those who wish to can turn on their video. And while active participation is not mandatory, as with any interactive piece, the theater simply won’t happen if nobody shows up. However the stakes are low, especially after all participants are anonymized at some point early on.

Connecting over quotidian things is often satisfying. Recognizing ourselves in other people’s experiences is something that further facilitates the bond, and Return the Moon plays on this human trait elegantly. Woven into a legend about the phases of the moon are prompts that encourage the audience to dive into their childhood memories or imagine the scenes from the tale. We are occasionally asked to type in the chat things that come by association—nuggets of a stranger's subconsciousness that will play at the end.

For part of the show, we are encouraged to close our eyes as the screen goes dark. The entire narrative is unfolding in every person’s head. This deceptively simple “stage” device is very effective in creating magical worlds. I was grateful for this reminder of the power of imagination and the fact that we don’t always need screens to entertain ourselves. Sometimes the most whimsical visuals are projected right onto the insides of our eyelids.

That said, Return the Moon is full of striking visuals created with simple materials and inventive lighting effects. Tiny houses made of paper come alive with the play of shadows on them. The manipulation of everyday objects, such as a bowl of grains or a piano keyboard, creates mesmerizing visual poetry with lighting and cinematography created on the spot. Early surrealist films come to mind, as well as the liberal-arts-college film experiments of my youth.

It wouldn’t be a Third Rail production without dance! But rarely do we see the full body of a dancer on the screen. However, in slowly crawling fingertips or ritualistic hand gestures, there is as much attention to movement as you might expect from a company whose primary language of expression is site-responsive choreography. In the era of remote work (and entertainment), seeing fragmented body parts (mostly heads) has become the new normal.

But as the moon goes through different phases, so does life. As a reminder that the physical world exists outside the soft glow of the computer screen, the company mails some kind of package after the show. I haven’t received mine yet—perhaps some holiday delays at the post office. Like with any live show, things don’t always go as planned; waiting for a package in the mail is just another, if unusual, dimension.

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Return the Moon plays remotely on Zoom through December 11, 2021. The running time is 75 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $42, Pay-it-Forward at $67, Subsidized at $15. Performance dates and times vary, but the three remaining performances are Sun 12/5, Wed 12/8 and Sat 12/11 at 8. For tickets and more information visit thirdrailprojects.com.

Return the Moon is by Alberto Denis, Kristin Dwyer, Joshua Gonzales, Sean Hagerty, Justin Lynch, Zach Morris, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara OCon, and Edward Rice. Conceived and Directed by Zach Morris. Produced by Zach Morris & Edward Rice. Assistant Director is Marissa Nielsen-Pincus. Choreography by Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Alberto Denis, Joshua Gonzales, Justin Lynch, Zach Morris, and Tara OCon. Sound Design and Original Music by Sean Hagerty. Visual Design by Zach Morris in collaboration with Alberto Denis, Kristin Dwyer, Joshua Gonzales, Justin Lynch, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara OCon, and Edward Rice. Stage Manager is Kristin Dwyer and Taylor Hollister. Production Managers are Kristin Dwyer, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, and Edward Rice.

The cast is Alberto Denis, Joshua Gonzales, Justin Lynch, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara OCon, and Kim Savarino.

(This review was published on theasy.com on 11.30.21)

alice…Alice…ALICE!

A mad-good cast of five wears multiple hats in this promenade adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

“We are all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad” proclaims the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s famed novel. And when Alice asks “How do you know I’m mad?” he simply replies “You must be or you wouldn’t have come here.” It always seemed to me that anybody who is attending an immersive show has to be a little bit mad, or at the very least adventurous. It is the spirit of whimsy, of exploration, that makes the immersive format a perfect fit for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where the audience members, much like the title heroine, are venturing into a journey to the unknown.

(L-R) Vicky Gilmore, Terry Greiss, Rivka Rivera and Joey Collins in alice…Alice…ALICE! Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

You probably heard of Then She Fell by Third Rail Projects, a choreographic immersive adaptation of Carroll's novel, which ran for seven and a half years in Brooklyn and inspired a whole new generation of immersive theatre-makers. The show permanently closed at the beginning of the pandemic. So it feels somewhat symbolic that Irondale Ensemble Project reemerges after the shutdown with their own version of the beloved story. It's a different company, and a very, very different Alice.

Irondale Ensemble Project invites small groups of up to 25 audience members to jump down the rabbit hole together. alice…Alice…ALICE! closely follows the original text of the novel, necessarily shortening, or outright omitting, some of the scenes. We follow curious Alice (Vicky Gilmore) from one encounter to another, mostly sitting or standing around the performers as the action unfolds. The Space at Irondale, a vast and gloomy Sunday school converted into a performance venue, hosts the various inhabitants of Wonderland, all performed by the diverse cast of five.

Given the small cast, each actor naturally plays multiple roles, and their chemistry stays intact from scene to scene and is contagious. At one point I found myself bursting into dance with the Cheshire Cat (Michael-David Gordon ), at another answering out loud to Mock Turtle (Terry Greiss)—such reactions aren’t necessarily built into the script, but the moment compelled me to step forward. The minimalist production features simple costumes and props, and uses bare walls (and occasionally some drapes), exploring many of the various nooks and crannies of the two-level space. But the scarcity of production design is balanced out by the radiant performances and lavish live music accompanying every scene.

The sweet naivete of theatrical tricks employed to show Alice’s changing size at the beginning of the show is followed by a blow from reality. Instead of a hookah-smoking caterpillar on a mushroom, Alice meets with a psychiatrist (Joey Collins). Suddenly the heroine's inability to answer the simple question “Who are you?” receives a whole new meaning. In the scenes that follow, fantasy and nonsense continue to mix with everyday realities like living in a nursing home or defending oneself in a totalitarian regime. The deliberate confusion, the intertwining of joy and anxiety in this reading of Alice, is a brilliant find of director Jim Niesen. I only wish he went further down that rabbit hole, emphasizing the topic of aging even more.

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(alice…Alice…ALICE! plays at The Space at Irondale, 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, through December 5, 2021. The running time is 90 minutes. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 5. Proof of vaccination and masks required. Tickets are $30; $15 for students, seniors and working artists. For tickets and more information visit irondale.org.)

alice…Alice…ALICE! is by Irondale Ensemble Project, adapted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Directed by Jim Niesen. Scenic Design by Ken Rothchild. Lighting Design by Emilio Maxwell Cerci. Costume Design by Hilarie Blumenthal. Music direction by Sam Day Harmet. Technical Director is Roni Sipp. Associate Producer is Renata Soares. Stage Manager is Jacqueline Joncas. Interns are Amara Pedroso and Manu.

The cast is Joey Collins, Vicky Gilmore, Michael David Gordon, Terry Greiss, and Rivka Rivera. Musicians are Sam Day Harmet, Erica Mancini, and Stephen LaRosa.

(This review was published on theasy.com on 11.10.21)

Assemble

A self-guided audio experience turns browsing in a furniture store into an existential immersive journey.

Life is dealing with the consequences of the choices we make. We are happy about some of them, but often we question ourselves. As we agonizingly try to make a decision, our minds swing between the memory of past mistakes and anxiety about the future. COVID-19 only exacerbated this feeling of a "time of uncertainty," which is really an undertow of human existence. But the pandemic certainly played right into the rewrite of Assemble (it was initially staged in early 2020).

Participants of Assemble. Photo by Talya Chalef.

Assemble is an audio experience that combines mundane shopping with existential dread. We find Jane (Jen Taher), the protagonist, on the verge of her fortieth birthday—a obvious time of transition that comes with acute feelings of uncertainty. We never actually see Jane, but, with the help of the app designed by the Assemble team, audience members are invited to join her on a quest for clarity. And doesn’t everybody crave clarity in life?          

In this solo, self-guided audio experience, Jane and her companions are led by Sigrid (Sophie Sorensen), an AI shopping assistant/life coach created by a global retailer whose name I was asked not to reveal. During the brisk walk from the meeting point (a bar in Red Hook) to the secret store, the main character is introduced and the participant’s body gets tuned in (via prompts to register sounds, smells, and tastes, delivered a bit too rapidly). I should make a note here—this was my second time attending Assemble (I went during the initial run in January 2020) so I already knew where this site-specific performance takes place. Nevertheless, I was still thrilled to enter the massive store—would I make better decisions this time?

Assemble is a choose-your-own-adventure experience, in which Sigrid brings options up on the screen of your mobile phone, and you get to decide what is going to be the next turn that Jane’s (and thus your own) adventure takes. The scenes and monologues that unfold upon making a selection might be contemplative or else might encourage you to interact with the environment. 

The experience is made surreal because Assemble is a 100% guerilla performance. No other visitors of the store, staff, or executives are aware of what is going on in your headphones. Trespassing feels exciting, like true street art. That said, the creators of Assemble are respectful of the business they populate, its customers, and their audience members. All the mischievous prompts are innocent enough and don’t stray away much from the behavior of regular customers. 

My only concern this time around is the sensation of an increased tempo in comparison to the first run. With the exception of a few scenes, the rewrite allows less time for the participant to calmly soak it all in. I felt like I was constantly nudged to move and perform actions that didn’t always feel necessary. My guess is that, by activating the audience through physical action, the creators hope to achieve more immersion, but they may have taken it too far. Between Jane’s story of mid-life crisis and Sigrid’s cheerful attempts to piece it all together, there is less space left for the audience member—their sensations, their emotions, their life experiences. And isn’t that why we love immersive theatre? Because it places the participant at the center?  

However, the environment is designed to pull you in, which is something that Assemble plays with. The simple yet genius conceptual frame to unobtrusively claim the store layout as a site of performance and to populate it with new narratives still has a powerful effect. Without ever saying it directly, Assemble continues to be a clever critique of consumer culture, and of the rising expectations that “successful” citizens, especially women, need to fulfill. In a way, the quickened tempo and the intensified sound design is synonymous with the frenzy and density of modern urban life. But I wish I had just a little bit more time to stroke that duvet while listening to the snoring of an unseen partner.        

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(Assemble plays at a secret location in Red Hook, Brooklyn (revealed upon buying a ticket). Tickets are currently on sale through December 31, 2021. The running time is around 1 hour 45 minutes. Performances are daily (Mondays through Sundays), starting every 20 minutes from 5 – 6:40. Tickets are $40; $30 for students, full-time artists and unemployed. For tickets and more information visit projectassemble.org.)

Assemble is by David Blackman, Talya Chalef, and Jess Kaufman.

The cast is Jen Taher, Sophie Sorensen, Danny Bryck, and features a global ensemble of 20 voice actors including Alison Bell, Neil D’Astolfo, Robin Galloway, Brooke Ishibashi, and Mia Katigbak.

(This review was published on theasy.com on 11.8.21)

The Last of the Love Letters

Two monologues of ex-lovers trying to make sense of life post-breakup.

“Do you remember seeing those things in those buildings? What are they called?" asks the character of You No. 2 (Daniel J. Watts). He fumbles underneath his mattress, one of the few objects in the hospital room, and fishes out a couple of playbills. “Plays! And theaters!” he exclaims gleefully. The small, sparsely seated audience of the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theatre chuckles softly behind their masks. Although Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Last of the Love Letters takes place in an anti-utopian no-time, the prospect of nearly forgetting what it feels like to be “sitting in the dark, breathing with strangers” is what connects on- and off-stage worlds. That, and of course the torments of a relationship after a breakup with a romantic partner.       

photo by Ahron R. Foster

In a nutshell, The Last of the Love Letters consists of two soliloquies by two former lovers. In those monologues—enactments of the texts of their letters—You (playwright Ngozi Anyanwu) and You No. 2 (Watts) try to make sense of the people they have become, and of their world without the other one in it. 

As we enter the theatre, You is already on stage, lounging in a tiny apartment crowded with furniture, vinyl records, and chaotically decorated with drawings. The entire set (by Yu-Hsuan Chen) is jammed towards the middle, conveying the suffocating state in which You found herself towards the end of the relationship. Playful, humorous, sincere—the heroine pours out her soul, changing costumes in the middle of the scene to mark her transition from somebody her partner wanted her to be to what she thinks she is. 

The transition to the next scene is jerking—suddenly we are catapulted from the realistic play into a futuristic dystopian asylum, where You No. 2 is confined for, presumably, being an artist. Stagehands dressed in white medical protective suits, complete with face coverings, pack an entire apartment in a large plastic container and roll it away. Only the bed remains, which the lovers still symbolically share despite being apart. The feeling of uneasiness is reinforced by flickering colored lights (by Stacey Derosier) and alarming sound design (by Twi McCallum). 

We get an intriguing glimpse of the play’s universe during this transition, and with the appearance of a character simply named Person (Xavier Scott Evans)—a nurse of few words who periodically gives You No. 2 his medications. Unfortunately, we don’t get much outside of those short bits, and we are left to our imagination to fill in the blanks of this Orwellian world. It might be argued that interpersonal relationships (the couple) are Anyanwu’s focus, but I wish she embedded this more thoroughly in the larger context. After all, the last of the love letters performed by You No. 2, one addressed to his former lover, turns out to be possibly the last love letter that civilization possesses. I am trying to avoid spoilers, but the stakes are higher than just private correspondence, and I wish the play elaborated more on this.

Daniel J. Watts, however, makes it all worth it. With the extremely minimal scenic design now on stage, Watts uses every inch of the space in his physical and extremely charged performance. Every movement, precise and light, seems like a dance. Even his laying down on the floor is one of the most graceful performances of a motionless body, limbs twisted painfully, like those of a broken doll. Watts' performance has that gut-wrenching, bone-chilling, scalp-tingling intensity that is not translatable to the screen (or Zoom). Watching Watts I was reminded of what I longed for during this era of virtual theatre—the magic of stage presence. 

(The Last of the Love Letters played at Atlantic Theater Company, 336 West 20th Street, through September 26, 2021. The running time was 75 minutes with no intermission. More information at atlantictheater.org.)

The Last of the Love Letters is by Ngozi Anyanwu. Directed by Patricia McGregor. Scenic Design by Yu-Hsuan Chen. Costume Design by Dede Ayite. Lighting Design by Stacey Derosier. Sound Design by Twi McCallum. Production Stage Manager is Imani Champion.

The cast is Ngozi Anyanwu, Daniel J. Watts, and Xavier Scott Evans.

(This review was published on theasy.com on September 28th)

Utopian Hotline — Theatre Mitu

$20-50; New York, NY; Through Sept 26

Photo by Alex Hawthorn

I dial 646-694-8050 and hear the following message: “Thank you for calling the Utopian Hotline. We are collecting anonymous responses to help us build a better tomorrow. At the tone, please respond to the question: How do you imagine a more perfect future?” 

After doing my best in summarizing my entire life philosophy in an elevator pitch, I hang up, my fingertips buzzing. Will somebody ever hear this? Will my message to the future be received? (Of course, I, like most other human beings, do tend to think about the future and have an opinion on how to make it better for everybody.) 

Two years ago, Theater MITU, a Brooklyn-based company, set up a public telephone hotline as a part of the research for a new show. Those messages, as well as conversations with astronauts, astronomers, futurists, and middle school students, have become the source material for Utopian Hotline., a vinyl record and live performance. 

Up to twelve audience members are invited to enter MITU580, the company’s studio, after removing their shoes. A lush pink carpet generously embraces my happy toes as I make my way to one of the round, white cushions placed around the perimeter of the black box theatre. There is a long, low table in the middle of the room with an array of telephones, tape records, vinyl record players, and microphones neatly assembled on it. An elongated projection screen hovers above the table, emanating a soft glow.    

The aural components of Utopian Hotline. make it to the audience through headphones. Four femme performers dressed in white jumpsuits and yellow socks sing and deliver monologues through microphones and telephone receivers. Like operators on a space station, they move around the table with graceful precision, connecting and disconnecting recorders and record players. The performance is woven from songs, messages from the hotline callers, philosophical reflections on the nature of time, and personal memories.    

Part sci-fi call center, part group therapy for those who long to connect, Utopian Hotline. is a meditative and soothing experience. The collage-like narrative takes the audience into the mind of a dyslexic person and to outer space, where the Voyager’s Golden Record is drifting alone in the dark, among other places. But the journey feels safe. And the haptic elements of the show’s design hold my body, much like the 21 layers of NASA’s first space suit held the early astronauts. From the soft touch of the playfully pink carpet to the comforting hug of the headphones, everything feels so calming that I don’t want to leave after the 45-minute performance is over.      

The pressing immediacy of public and personal matters over the past two years has continued to knock many of us off our feet. But holding onto a sense of community and fixing our gaze upon the future helps us rise. This notion is what Utopian Hotline reminds us of: curiosity and care are inherent to humans as a species, and no matter what we are going through, we can always count on them. As Stephen Hawking puts it, the objects are not trapped in black holes forever. And “if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up, there is a way out.”

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on September 15th)

Un(re)solved at Tribeca Film Festival

Tucked behind the Netherland Monument at one of the entrances to Battery Park in Manhattan, you will find Un(re)solved, a temporary monument to a different page in American history; a more humane and ephemeral one.

Un(re)solved is an interactive installation that can be activated with a custom app. A brief audio introduction, prompted by the “Start” QR code on the pavement, invites you to step into the delicate structure on a slightly raised (but accessible) platform. Thirteen plexiglass panels of various heights form two concentric circles. Each panel contains a quilt with a drawing of a tree facing the circle and lists of names on the outside: 151 in total. Each of those people was murdered during the Civil Rights Movement-era, often simply because of their race. The murderers were not found or not punished. These cold cases were reopened by the Department of Justice in 2008 under the Emmet Till Unresolved Civil Rights Crime Act, but, for a lack of effort, resources, or evidence, most of them remain unsolved. 

This touring installation provides a physical space to engage with the stories of political activists and humble workers, children, and adults--both named and anonymous--all lost to racial violence. The process feels like modern spiritual science. First, one needs to scan a QR code next to a name and, when prompted, say that name three times. Upon each call, augmented reality leaves appear on the phone screen and intensify their swirling until one of them comes forth, bearing a photo of the person summoned. More often than not, there is just a silhouette representing the deceased. The Un(re)solved app shows a short dossier consisting of their name and age, the circumstances in which the victim died, and the date and the place of their killing. The “read more” button leads to a longer description of the fatal events, the details of the initial investigation, and the current status of the case.    

Some of the entries contain fragments of audio interviews with members of the family and the community of the deceased; some of the open cases are also featured in an interactive documentary. (I came across a couple of the audio interviews but didn’t watch any video fragments.) Simply reading these dossiers already felt like a visceral experience. The physical discomfort of squinting at my phone under a blazing sun, trying to shield myself in the shade of one of the taller panels seemed appropriate. For those who wish to take a break, however, there are two rows of park benches running on either side of the installation.      

The capacity of this multimedia project to grow as investigations progress in the future is remarkable. The combination of an expanding digital archive and a beautiful physical portal at the entrance of a park illustrates the ambivalent nature of time and history. The Civil Rights Movement-era belongs to the past, yet anti-Black violence continues to be a real threat in the United States. One can stay in the Un(re)solved installation as long as they need or want to. I couldn’t help but want to hear more people’s stories, yet I was also feeling completely overwhelmed at the same time. Eventually, I made it to the outro of the piece (an audio message activated by another QR code in the center of the circles). On my screen, overlaid with scenes from a summer day in the park, ghostly presences were summoned; they flooded the air in the form of the names of the 151 people unjustly killed. And I am horrified to think of how many more there might be.

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on June 17th, 2020)

CURRENT at Tribeca Film Festival

The Financial District of Manhattan is an ever busy part of town, crowded with tourists and workers; it’s also surrounded by water on three sides. Annie Saunders and Andrew Schneider, the two narrators and the co-creators of CURRENT, invite the audience to join them for an hour-long soundwalk through its streets: all you need is a charged phone and a pair of headphones. The tour starts in Zuccotti Park every half hour. The one-and-a-half-mile-long route takes the listeners down Broadway, past the New York Stock Exchange, and through a labyrinth of winding streets and alleys, some of which are so narrow you could easily miss them otherwise. 

‘CURRENT’

Obscure historical facts are intertwined with the authors’ peculiar and poetic observations about the surroundings. Just like the city blocks we are strolling through, the narrative reveals multiple layers of local and personal histories. Did you know that multiple burial grounds of free and enslaved Africans are found here, where skyscrapers are built? Or that Pearl Street once was the natural edge of Manhattan Island? CURRENT starts out as an unconventional city-centered audio tour and gradually builds up to be a philosophical reflection on urban development and the precariousness of human biology.

There is no one single map that someone can follow during CURRENT as all the directions are given verbally, which presents some challenges at a couple of pivotal points. Occasionally, I exchange questioning glances with a stranger who was clearly also listening to CURRENT in tandem, and we are able to navigate as a collective. This act doesn’t feel burdensome or annoying, however; if anything, it felt a bit like a treasure hunt. “Find a ‘no parking sign’ and stand next to it,” says Annie’s friendly voice. And soon I’m scanning the environment with intensity and attention to the minute details of the cityscape. It’s a focus I can rarely afford when running errands in this part of town. 

CURRENT’s listeners are encouraged to follow the pace of Annie’s footsteps in order to not to fall behind during the experience. Normally, I consider myself a fast walker but this time I wasn't able to always keep up to the narration. Luckily, there are a few rest stops along the way, during which we get to hear fragments of interactions and interviews with the inhabitants and visitors of Manhattan. But I wished the pauses that followed the dialogue fragments weren't completely dead. Hearing nothing but silence for a few seconds after a conversational moment made me compulsively check my phone to make sure that I was still connected to the experience. I have a similar thought around the ending of the experience. The audio track unfortunately stops rather abruptly, right after we complete our loop and arrive back at Zuccotti Park; it’s a choice that leaves the listeners of CURRENT feeling somewhat adrift.

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on June 18th, 2020)

‘Zoetrope’ Brings Live Theatre Back to New York City (Review)

Exquisite Corpse Company presents a kaleidoscope of familiar, absurd scenes from life in self-isolation

The vacant lot on the intersection of Myrtle and Vanderbilt Avenues in Brooklyn wouldn’t normally catch my attention. A huge faded poster on the firewall says “Achtung, baby, here comes the Next Great Depression,” and underneath it a white wooden trailer covered with a blue tarp. Yet, I enter through the gate in the wire mesh fence holding my breath in anticipation. This inconspicuous lot with cracked asphalt, two porta-potties, and a canopy with a couple of chairs for a vestibule is the site of Zoetrope, the first in-person live theatre show that I am seeing this year! 

photo by Jess Dalene

Zoetrope, produced by Exquisite Corpse Company (producer Liz Frost) is an accessible and COVID-19 safe “portable living diorama of 2020”. The slick white trailer mentioned in the beginning is where the theatre magic happens. The name of the show refers to an optical toy of the 19th-century, pre-film era. By rotating the cylinder with drawings on its inner surface (like phases of a horse’s gallop) and looking at it from the slits on the outside, one could create the illusion of movement. ECC’s Zoetrope doesn’t rotate, but it has the slits. And once the show is brought to motion, we can observe various phases of the early days of COVID-19 era, chasing each other. Up to eight audience members can be safely seated around four openings into the trailer and observe the life of a couple in self-isolation in their tiny studio apartment. Painfully familiar and delightfully strange, Zoetrope is an attempt to distance ourselves from the challenging and tragic past year in order to start processing what happened. 

I nervously take my seat under the black muslin on the other side of the apartment’s TV screen. Other audience members get comfortable in front of the fish tank, a calendar, or a portrait. The sound of a disembodied voice and music come in through the headphones connected to an MP3 player. The curtains are pulled open and we can see Angel (Starr Kirkland, alternating with Vanessa Lynah for some of the shows) and Bae (Leana Gardella, alternatively Jules Forsberg-Lary) cozied up on the couch, each of them staring either at a laptop or a phone. A peaceful diorama of the “before” moment.      

Suddenly, notifications pop in on Angel and Bae’s devices. “Looks like it’ll be just you and me for a while,” - and so starts the long period of hibernation, dealing with panic attacks, procrastinating, taking care of each other, fighting, and making space for each other in the suffocating shoebox of a city apartment. Some of us have been down that road, some of us are still in the middle of it. And although I had a strong, repelling reaction towards COVID-themed shows in the past, Zoetrope seems to strike the right cord and at the right moment. 

Zoetrope, created by three playwrights, Elinor T Vanderburg, Leah Barker, and Emily Krause, is a realistic play with lively dialogue, poetically silent soliloquies, and generously peppered with humor. But because it is about the life of two young, hip, Brooklynites in quarantine in 2020, it is tragic and hilarious at the same time. The scenes from the life of an interracial couple rotate in front of our eyes like in a kaleidoscope: Bae brings home a fish from the supermarket because she wants a pet; a fight over an absurd amount of beans bought in a frenzy because there was nothing else in the store; Angel finds out the news of the police assaulting black citizens; the couple watches an election debate together. 

You might not witness the same exact scenes. Zoetrope has a choose-your-own-adventure structure, where audience members are responsible for the twists of the plot. Three out of four seats in the house (or would it be more accurate to say “around the house”) have panels equipped with three switches. Once a panel lights up, the viewer in front of it can make a scene selection, based on the single image on the buttons. Mine were: a VHS tape, a mascot of Goldfish crackers, and a bottle of Absolut vodka. Not wishing self-destruction on the characters I pressed a button corresponding to a VHS tape image. The scene that followed featured Bae talking to a TV, while watching what appeared to be an interior design competition show, and loading up on Goldfish. 

I am not sure if the selection misfired or if crackers were destined to appear regardless; the fact that I made a choice felt inconsequential at that moment. It was a minor disappointment because the scene was funny and endearing. Under the direction of Porcia Lewis and Tess Howsam, and intimacy direction by Daniella Caggiano, the performances of Kirkland and Gardella were beautiful and made me tear up a couple of times over the 35 minutes that the show runs.      

Perhaps the effect was strengthened by the fact that I was watching two humans performing in real life for the first time in months, only separated from them by plexiglass. Watching a live show from the other side of a TV felt uncanny and meta in some sense. Although studying every single detail in a slick, entirely black-and-white apartment (decorated by visual artists Emily Addison, Dominica Montoya) felt very familiar because of the hours spent on Zoom. 

Over the past year, all of us who frequently participate in video calls simultaneously turned into voyeurs and performers in a peep-show. Zoetrope feels similar with one exception: you can’t “turn off the self-view” or dissolve into the sea of participants with their video turned off. The show stares at you, literally (through the eyes of the actors) and figuratively (I recognized myself in a lot of it). There is nothing like live theatre when it comes to holding a mirror up to the world.             

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on May 18)

‘Icons/Idols: in the Purple Room’ (Review)

Entering the New Ohio Theatre to see a show seems strange and exciting. And although Icons/Idols: in the Purple Room is a political drama set in the eighth century Byzantium, it is difficult to separate the past from the present. The historical events overlaid with the design of the experience, largely prompted by COVID-19 safety protocols, create an eerie atmosphere and make you revise “theatre” as a concept. 

Photo courtesy of Byzantine Choral Project

This production combines a 40-minute soundtrack (book and lyrics by Helen Banner, music by Grace Oberhofer), and an immersive installation (design by Afsoon Pajoufar). Upon receiving the timed entry ticket confirmation, I also get a link to download the audio file to my cell phone. Using my headphones, I can listen to the choral drama, prompted to move from one part of the installation to the other (for those who wish, mp3 players and headphones are available at the door). There are no live performers in the space (save for a single “stagehand” who helps to navigate the space if anybody is confused). The entries are staggered, so at any given moment, there are only a handful of audience members wandering in the labyrinths of history.        

The story that unfolds is of the Byzantine empress Irene, and her life journey from a young orphan to the height of political power. Irene was brought to Constantinople by Constantine V to marry his son, Leo IV. This is where I, as an audience member, enter the story, descending the staircase leading to what normally would be the backstage but now is a hallway of a palace (there is also an accessible entrance). Floor-to-ceiling silk prints feature the black-and-white image of some ancient hall. The columns on the photograph rhyme visually with the columns in the theater. The craft paper runner leads to the towering “throne”, a red plastic chair atop a metal ladder, reminiscent of a lifeguard seat at the poolside. The eclecticism of the installation design is certainly stimulating but puzzling at times. 

The site of the next scene is a large bed covered with white sheets stained with blood (the childbirth of Constantine VI, the next in line for the throne, just took place here). There are two remote controls prominently placed on the bed. It is unclear whether they are put there intentionally or were left there by mistake after two TVs featuring a single, slowly blinking eye were turned on. Either way, this minor detail was quite noticeable in the minimalistic and carefully put together set and took me out of the moment. The stakes dropped once I was visually cued that it all might just be a TV melodrama. 

The historical events themselves are highly dramatic. The conflict between Irene and the male members of the royal family (first her father-in-law and her husband, then her son) revolves around the rivalry between iconophiles and iconoclasts. Irene, who is deeply connected to icons, first tries to pass this passion onto her younger son. However, she is discovered and punished by her husband by being separated from her child and practically imprisoned. Despite the personal trauma and the hostile atmosphere towards iconography in Byzantium, Irene continues her pursuit and will soon challenge the empire. She is not stopping even when her own son gets in the way of her vision.         

               

Icons/Idols, the first part of the Byzantine Choral Project, is full of blood-chilling horrors and passion crushing everything in its way. The emotional turmoils are conveyed beautifully in acapella choral singing by the voices of ten female and non-binary performers. The installation component, on the other hand, slows down the dynamic narrative, and I am still not sure whether it benefits the vocal performance. 

While the singing conveys raw passions, the installation looks like a cadaver of the past, held together by brown scotch tape. Some components of the visual design are stunning: for example, the large-scale fabric prints of the palace and the church, which looked triumphant and haunting, moving slightly as the few audience members were moving between them. So did the heavy velvet backdrop of the “purple room”. And even the bed, as a site of birth and death reads as an important visual dominant (minus the remote controls). But the brown tape generously used throughout the space made me cringe. Conceptually, it was probably referring to holding the Byzantine empire together. In reality, it looked messy and degraded the overall design concept. Thankfully, the bold and colorful lighting brought some edge to the visual design and held it together.                     

Execution aside, there is something haunting in the incongruity between the narrative unfolding chronologically in “real-time” and the non-linear trajectory of the movement through space, half-ruin, held together by inadequate means. It was also incredibly uncanny to see the familiar theater space transformed and to get disoriented. The entire experience, starting from entering New Ohio from where the actors normally would, and ending the show on the bleachers made me think of the future of the theatre-going: will it ever be the same? Most importantly, do we want it to be “the same”? Or should we follow the example of passionate Irene, who was able to seize the moment, changing the course of the entire Western civilization?       

Haunting Tales of ‘Someone Else’s House’ (Review)

A ghost story by the fire in the age of the virtual theatre 

Photo courtesy of Geffen Playhouse.

It requires a lot of willpower to not open a slick wooden box with a single letter “J” burned into its top. 

Just a thin string separates me from the secrets of Someone Else's House, a new virtual experience from Geffen Playhouse’s Stayhouse series. But I was instructed not to open the “haunting kit” until I am prompted to do so in the show. Lights are dimmed, curtains pulled down, and the Zoom update is installed: the spooky atmosphere is set. When Jared Mazzochi, the writer and performer for the evening joins the audience (up to 40 households), we all squirm in our seats in anticipation. 

What Jared is about to tell us is a true story that happened to his family before he was born. In the 80’s, his parents moved into a mansion that was over 200 years old in Enfield, New Hampshire, with their three little kids. What seemed like a great bargain for a large property ended up costing the family much more in psychological damage. Jered’s brother, eight at the time of the move, was scared for his life by the horrifying events that unfolded at the house during the short time the Mazzochis occupied it. Wanting to get to the bottom of it, and hoping to heal the scars of the past, Jared decided to investigate the history of the house and its original dwellers, the Johnson family.    

(Minor spoilers ahead)

Jered conducted impressive research, recreating the family tree of the Johnsons, which he proudly presented to us, complete with the old black and white photographs of its members. Each of our boxes contains a copy of the family tree so we can follow along with the story. Indeed, it would be difficult to do so without the visual reference - the matriarch and the patriarch, Joseph and Polly, had nine children alone! 

Completing the dossier are the floor plan with an idyllic etching of the house in the 19th century and a scented candle which all of us light at the beginning (matches are included in the kit). A separate envelope contains five photographs, each audience member has a different set. As Jered leads us along the branches of the Johnson family tree, he calls upon people who have the photos of the certain characters to read their short bios from the back of the cards. This is the most participation required from the audience members, making Someone Else's House a suitable show for introverts. One can decline speaking by just not holding the photograph up to the screen. The Johnsons were a large family, but there are still duplicates, so the responsibility to introduce a new character is never on a single person.

It is, however, required to keep your video on, so we all could hold the space symbolically. The part where Jared shares the results of his investigation at the beginning of the show, happens in gallery mode. There is something haunting in the way the Zoom grid is continued by the row of black and white photographs of the dead people on my desk. One particular woman is staring at me intensely (the cause of death unknown). So does the 13-year-old boy who died after being stung by multiple bees. 

(Somewhat bigger spoilers ahead so I suggest you stop reading if you plan to attend the show)

After demonstrating the impressive diorama of Johnson's family tree on his wall, Jared switches locations and we can now see a bit more of this cozy interior. There is a desk with some books on it, a hallway, and an antique wooden chair mounted on the wall. Apparently, this was a practice common in the 18th and 19th century, including among the Shakers, which was a prevalent religious community in the area at the time. I never saw people storing chairs in this way and had to Google it. To me, the “floating chair” looked like a slightly surreal design element visually communicating suspense. The production design of Someone Else's House (by Sibyl Wickersheimer) is full of small and thoughtful details like this one.

As Jared shares more and more from the intertwining stories of two families who occupied the house, the Johnson’s and the Mazzochi’s, strange interference invades the transmission. A glitch in the video or a second-long shot of the overhead view of the room are unobtrusive but they gradually make me feel more and more uneasy. At some point the realization of the inevitability of danger is so tense it can be cut with a knife. But Jared is so into sharing his research with us that he doesn’t pay attention to the lights flickering in the hallway behind him.  

Without giving away any more I will just say that Someone Else's House is an interesting experiment of adapting the horror genre to the virtual theatre. The combination of tangible objects and skillful video special effects (by Virtual Design Collective aka VIDCO) unites theatre and film, the living and their ghosts. Perhaps most importantly, Jared Mazzochi, directed by Margot Bordelon, is an engaging storyteller. The faces of the audience members leaning forward, brightened by the glow of their computer screens, feels as if I am listening to a ghost story by the “fire”. 

Someone Else's House probably won’t make you lose sleep; it is not extreme by any means. Although not without some spooky moments, and a spectacular grand finale, it makes for a pleasant evening. This show was more about connecting through storytelling, than being afraid of each shadow and squeak at your own place.     

After the show is brought to an end abruptly and I blow out my candle, the peculiar aroma lingers in the air for some time. Not a candle person myself, I didn’t notice how much of the atmosphere of the experience was influenced by its complicated scent. Designed by the Uppercase Candle Company, this little candle smells of bitter herbs, antique furniture, and a campfire. I relish in the familiar yet uncanny combination of smells, letting the ghosts of the Johnson/Mazzochi residence settle and rest for the night.                          

 

(This review was published on NoProscenium.com on May 11)