Gone, Gone, Gone is a love story told through movement and masking tape, with a strong supporting role played by paper towels. The performance is mostly engaging and fun, except in a few tiresome interludes involving arranging the tape and paper towels; I haven’t made out whether these adhesives and sanitizers are meant to be metaphoric, or are playful exhortations to see the magic in the everyday (or signs implying that love fits us with crazy, rose-tinted lenses that transform even our domestic necessities into sources of delight), or whether they’re simply incidental set pieces. In any case, the tape and paper towels are sometimes enchanting, and sometimes aggravating props in the narration of a romance. Gone, Gone, Gone insightfully chronicles the maturation of a relationship, as the pair moves from a giddy beginning, through a tense patch, and into a more restrained and adult attachment in the conclusion. At least, I think that’s what all that masking tape, leaping, and swaying were illustrating.
When you first meet the couple, they’re in the blissful, drunken early stage of love. They dance with their domestic supplies and each other in delirium, playfully and giddily, and their silliness has the same effect as that of your classic Elizabethan fool: at times, their frolicking and grinning and indiscretion appears so liberated and inspiring that you’re prompted to wonder why we bother acting so sensibly all the time, when we could be delighting in the very fact of being alive. But then the answer comes, as you start to grow exasperated with the frivolity. After all, there’s more to life and love than stretching out strips of masking tape and unrolling paper towels. Why are they wasting all that tape, anyway? And what about the trees sacrificed to make their absorbent confetti? The joy this pair derives from putting masking tape on the floor becomes altogether perplexing, and suddenly you recall a movie whose premise alone made you too uncomfortable to watch it. In order to stop feeling guilty about watching the love story of simpleminded folk, you begin to tell yourself that they are illustrating the very accurate point that love simplifies even as it complicates. It inspires, or perhaps it requires, us to be naïve, innocent, vulnerable and simple, even while it makes a sticky mess of our lives (hey, that’s just like masking tape!). This makes you feel a little better.
The affair begins to run into some trouble, though, when the female tapes their hands together. There’s major strain with this possessive claim, and the two appear to quarrel before their bond(age) ruptures. The male dancer then performs an impressive and rather mournful solo bit flecked with acrobatics and some horizontal writhing, before his companion returns. They reunite and test their bounds with each other, negotiating the terms of a more sustainable and less juvenile partnership. As the piece ends, the mad exuberance has been replaced by something more studied, more tempered. Paper towels and masking tape still have a rather puzzling presence in the final moments, but the dancers’ movements are altogether more independent, and though they still touch and support each other, they leave each other more space and opportunities for autonomous motion.
It’s a tribute to this piece that it reminded me of the wisdom of Mr. Edward Morgan Forster. In Howard’s End, the more sensible of the Schlegel sisters rhapsodizes about the “rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion,” and preaches proportion. You know the drill. Responsibility tempered by whimsy, passion tempered by reason, business by sensibility, wild untamed nature by civilized society. But, Margaret Schlegel says, proportion should only come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed. We ought to lurch either way before striking a bargain, she (or Forster, through her) suggests. And the love story told in Gone, Gone, Gone seems to be a similar tale of lurching, reeling in joy and anguish, codependency and loneliness, and finally reaching a balance.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
IndyFringe Review : Phil the Void - See it!
Do well by yourself and get an advanced ticket to see one of the final shows of Phil The Void: The Great Brain Robbery. Phil Van Hest’s standup comic/philosophic/political act will kickstart your brain, make you laugh, make you flush in embarrassed self-recognition, and make you share some of his palpable anger and disappointment with the unsatisfactory status quo of our common political and intellectual situation. His act is definitely hilarious, but it’s not exactly diverting. It seethes with the furious compassion and commitment that always inspire great satire.
Before the show begins, Van Hest wanders the audience, chatting easily with the diverse crowd about everything from paper-milling to beer, and passes out a unique variety of show program: a bibliography. This little piece of paper offers a strong hint about the sort of show you’re about to see: the font and title is playfully ominous, and the source list ranges from St. Augustine to Steven Hawking, Howard Zinn to The New Yorker. And like any bighearted nerd, Phil can’t resist adding a few “just for fun” recommendations, which include my favorite Vonnegut and the spectacular A Confederacy of Dunces.
Van Hest’s show is about the Great Brain Robbery of which we’re all more-or-less-consenting victims. The menaces that beguile us into relinquishing our brains are often criticized, but seldom actually resisted: Facebook and other (anti)social networks (this blog, too, is clearly contributing to what Van Hest dubs the “consciousness feedback,” or snare of a muddled feedback loop between “real life” and our mediation of such life, through online documentation and pseudo-cultivation); telephones that relieve us from nuisances like remembering phone numbers, or addresses, or our own geographic locations; and the seductions of irrelevant detours on the Information Superhighway. Van Hest also targets other menaces we suffer, dipping into the politics of civil liberties, healthcare, and – of course – banking and the economy.
As I said, his show’s not diverting. Its purpose is to redirect our attention, to restore our consciousness to our own lives. Or, as Joyce put it, (I, too, am a bighearted nerd, I think) to remind us that the only way to live well as human beings (and responsibly as citizens, Van Hest might add), is to hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past. And to laugh along the way.
Before the show begins, Van Hest wanders the audience, chatting easily with the diverse crowd about everything from paper-milling to beer, and passes out a unique variety of show program: a bibliography. This little piece of paper offers a strong hint about the sort of show you’re about to see: the font and title is playfully ominous, and the source list ranges from St. Augustine to Steven Hawking, Howard Zinn to The New Yorker. And like any bighearted nerd, Phil can’t resist adding a few “just for fun” recommendations, which include my favorite Vonnegut and the spectacular A Confederacy of Dunces.
Van Hest’s show is about the Great Brain Robbery of which we’re all more-or-less-consenting victims. The menaces that beguile us into relinquishing our brains are often criticized, but seldom actually resisted: Facebook and other (anti)social networks (this blog, too, is clearly contributing to what Van Hest dubs the “consciousness feedback,” or snare of a muddled feedback loop between “real life” and our mediation of such life, through online documentation and pseudo-cultivation); telephones that relieve us from nuisances like remembering phone numbers, or addresses, or our own geographic locations; and the seductions of irrelevant detours on the Information Superhighway. Van Hest also targets other menaces we suffer, dipping into the politics of civil liberties, healthcare, and – of course – banking and the economy.
As I said, his show’s not diverting. Its purpose is to redirect our attention, to restore our consciousness to our own lives. Or, as Joyce put it, (I, too, am a bighearted nerd, I think) to remind us that the only way to live well as human beings (and responsibly as citizens, Van Hest might add), is to hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past. And to laugh along the way.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
IndyFringe Review: humanature
Humanature, a collaborative dance, music, and video performance at this year’s Indianapolis Theater Fringe Festival, goes a long way toward realizing the features of live dance performances that make me love dance. The (Re)Collective Company is more than a dance company: as its website and literature profess, the Company is committed to collaboration across artistic disciplines, and its staging showcases its musicians as much as its dancers. The stage is shared by the all-male musical ensemble, which includes hand drums, a cello, and an electric bass, and by the female trio of dancers. The musicians and dancers partner to create a series of scenes in different styles, expressing the destructive and redemptive forces of Nature, and the result is often invigorating and beautiful. The performance errs occasionally, however, when it slips into the sort of awkward pretension that too often plagues avant-guard performance pieces.
As the production cycles through its various styles, the choreography appears to be influenced by everything from ballet, to African dance, to yoga, to belly dancing and modern. In its best moments, the dancers whip through rhythms with clean, decisive movements, or slow down to exhibit the exquisite bodily control required by classical styles. The music, too, is most powerful when influenced by either African or classical styles. Portions of the production spotlight the hand drums, and the audience begins perhaps inadvertently to tap and bob along with the pulsing rhythms. In a striking and lovely departure in tone, the cellist and electric bassist lift into an unexpectedly delicate classical duet.
I found myself stifling groans, however, during those postmodern interludes of dancers walking across the stage in slow, measured steps with affected expressions of solemnity on their faces, or creeping and swaying in interpretation of jungle creatures or perhaps the animalistic impersonality of Nature. Contrasting with the buoyant vigor of other portions of the performance, these moments of mannered earnestness are disappointing and distracting.
Occasionally the instrumental mix doesn’t quite balance, either. The bassist sometimes drifts into digressive rifts suggestive of the easy-listening variety of Classic Rock, which clash faintly with the rest of the ensemble and the physical mood established by the dancers. A particularly painful segment for me features a halting monologue about the savage vitality of Water, delivered in a style evocative of slam poetry on sedatives. Unfortunately for the guy murmuring ceremoniously about Water, Disaster, Tidal Waves and Fault Lines while the dancers creep and slither and downward-dog across the stage, the other performance this bit most resembles is Sarah Palin’s doggerel tribute to the “big wild good life teaming along the road that is north to the future.” Perhaps I just misunderstood the intent, though.
Notwithstanding these occasional stumbles, the overall production is compelling and enjoyable. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching human bodies transformed into artistic mediums, into reminders of the possible exaltation of embodiment, movement, strength, and corporal freedom. A last note I'd like to make is that this performance was also my introduction to the Earth House, a space well worth many visits.
As the production cycles through its various styles, the choreography appears to be influenced by everything from ballet, to African dance, to yoga, to belly dancing and modern. In its best moments, the dancers whip through rhythms with clean, decisive movements, or slow down to exhibit the exquisite bodily control required by classical styles. The music, too, is most powerful when influenced by either African or classical styles. Portions of the production spotlight the hand drums, and the audience begins perhaps inadvertently to tap and bob along with the pulsing rhythms. In a striking and lovely departure in tone, the cellist and electric bassist lift into an unexpectedly delicate classical duet.
I found myself stifling groans, however, during those postmodern interludes of dancers walking across the stage in slow, measured steps with affected expressions of solemnity on their faces, or creeping and swaying in interpretation of jungle creatures or perhaps the animalistic impersonality of Nature. Contrasting with the buoyant vigor of other portions of the performance, these moments of mannered earnestness are disappointing and distracting.
Occasionally the instrumental mix doesn’t quite balance, either. The bassist sometimes drifts into digressive rifts suggestive of the easy-listening variety of Classic Rock, which clash faintly with the rest of the ensemble and the physical mood established by the dancers. A particularly painful segment for me features a halting monologue about the savage vitality of Water, delivered in a style evocative of slam poetry on sedatives. Unfortunately for the guy murmuring ceremoniously about Water, Disaster, Tidal Waves and Fault Lines while the dancers creep and slither and downward-dog across the stage, the other performance this bit most resembles is Sarah Palin’s doggerel tribute to the “big wild good life teaming along the road that is north to the future.” Perhaps I just misunderstood the intent, though.
Notwithstanding these occasional stumbles, the overall production is compelling and enjoyable. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching human bodies transformed into artistic mediums, into reminders of the possible exaltation of embodiment, movement, strength, and corporal freedom. A last note I'd like to make is that this performance was also my introduction to the Earth House, a space well worth many visits.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
IndyFringe Review: Phi Alpha Gamma
Phi Alpha Gamma is an impressive one-man show created and performed by Dan Bernitt, currently running at the Indianapolis Theater Fringe Festival. The intellectually and emotionally stirring show tells the story of a fraternity confronting (sort of) its own institutionalized homophobia. Two years prior to the show’s setting, one of the brothers was arrested and imprisoned for brutally beating a young gay man. Now the fraternity finds its identity and fears provoked when one of its own members comes out during a house meeting. As the frat brothers debate how to respond to the revelation that there’s been a Gay In Their Midst, a “faggot” who’s probably been whacking off to the thought of them and deriving his own erotic joys from their zone of testosterone, two homophobic voices dominate: that of a rightist-Christian who condemns their bro’s “sexual immorality” and its pervasive poisoning effects on the fraternal community, and that of the fraternity’s president, who airs fairly shallow and puerile concerns about the frat now being labeled “the gay frat” only two years after earning the reputation of being the violently homophobic frat. The president adores “the letters” of the fraternity and the special male utopia they represent, and he can’t bear to have those letters represent anything besides, one presumes, the straight white male who gets to orchestrate the world. Makes me think of the C Street crew in Washington, DC .
Bernitt cycles through representing several characters in the fraternity, deftly changing mannerisms and characteristics to signal shifts in portrayal: he's the charismatic and image-conscious fraternity president, a Bible-wielding “moral voice” of the brotherhood, a brother who’s troubled by his fraternity’s atmosphere of homophobia but who’s reluctant to decamp from the group he views as a surrogate to the family he lacks, and the young man who’s currently serving a multi-year sentence for his mid-coitus assault of a gay man in a park. Bernitt cleverly avoids characterizing either the gay frat brother or the gay victim of the park attack, and instead exercises various versions of prejudice and fear. This gives the play a tone more palatable to centrist audience members, who might shy away from any oratory by overtly dogmatic, liberal characters. Unfortunately, by restricting his most cogent homophobic arguments to that of the narrow-minded Bible-clutching brother, and the simplistic, jockish fraternity president, Bernitt doesn’t fully develop the play’s most provocative point: in a world in which violent acts are perpetrated against individuals based on sexual orientation, everyone shares the guilt.
Bernitt makes this important point through the portrayal of the orphaned brother, who gets distressed by the fraternity’s homophobic slang and rejection of the Gay One. This brother appears to be tolerant and accepting, even indifferent when his brother comes out in the middle of a Chemistry tutoring session (spurred by an obscure association between Chemistry acumen and the gay brother’s toxicology hospitalization following a shame-driven suicide attempt). And yet, Bernitt suggests and then drills home, this guy, too, is guilty. He’s a part of the ideological atmosphere in which hate crime happens. It eventually comes out that this brother is objectively as well as ideologically implicated in the fraternity’s culture of homophobia, but even before this revelation, Bernitt suggests that he shares the guilt. I rather wish he’d kept this character’s guilt at the more complex and provocative level of complicity, which incorporates us sitting in the audience. We all perpetuate homophobia, simply by accepting a society that rests on a homophobic status quo. And thus, we all contribute to the atmosphere in which hate crimes occur.
Bernitt’s play was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Drama , and it’s easy to see why such a powerful play dealing with the culture that surrounds hate crimes was touted by the GLBT organization. It’s especially interesting to consider Bernitt’s play in its current political context. In July of this year, Congress passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (better known as the Matthew Shepard Act), which empowers federal authorities to get involved in local investigations and prosecutions of criminal acts considered to be motivated by prejudice. The new Act expands the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation, an extension many groups consider overdue considering the proportional volume of sexuality-motivated aggressive acts. The Act is particularly significant in a state like Indiana, which does not have hate crime sentence enhancement laws.
The passage of hate crimes laws is naturally controversial, even within the communities that most appear to benefit from the laws. I recommend this thoughtful article questioning the effectiveness and integrity of hate crime laws. The article raises stimulating questions about the inconsistencies between campaigns for “human rights” and campaigns for tougher sentencing, the redundancy of enforcing stricter punishment on crimes whose punishment is already unequivocal, and the fact that taking a stance on hate crime laws often amounts to a wimpy and ultimately hollow political move by legislators eager to appear “progressive” without risking going the full distance in creating a truly equal society.
As Bernitt’s play suggests, the only way to actually protect people like the Michigan teenager who was just recently attacked because of his sexual orientation is to address the pervasive homophobic culture. Sure, we can pass laws that make us look tougher on prejudice, when it materializes in violent acts. But what we really need to do is pass laws that disentangle prejudice from every institution of our society. There are two big, glaring homophobic / heteronormative institutions in the US where we can start: marriage and the military. And in 29 states, it’s still legal to fire someone for divulging he or she is gay. If we want to end violent prejudice, we must first and foremost end such institutional prejudice. We ought to pour our energy into creating a society in which “family values” is no longer a term that can senselessly be wielded to condemn certain family profiles, in which patriotic courage rather than sexual orientation is the primary consideration of a person’s fitness to serve in the military, and in which job performance and workplace behavior are the only things employers evaluate. Etc, etc. The unctuous backing of hate crimes legislation cannot be a substitute for pursuing actual equality.
Bottom line for festival-goers: Bernitt’s play is good. It’s thought provoking. It’s emotionally stirring, and very well-acted. It’s not perfect, but it initiates a conversation that we must continue to have. See it.
Bottom line for everyone: we’re all implicated by the terms we accept in our world. If this troubles you, do something about it.
http://www.indianaequality.org/Default.aspx
http://www.hrc.org/
http://gayrights.change.org/actions
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/index.html
Bernitt cycles through representing several characters in the fraternity, deftly changing mannerisms and characteristics to signal shifts in portrayal: he's the charismatic and image-conscious fraternity president, a Bible-wielding “moral voice” of the brotherhood, a brother who’s troubled by his fraternity’s atmosphere of homophobia but who’s reluctant to decamp from the group he views as a surrogate to the family he lacks, and the young man who’s currently serving a multi-year sentence for his mid-coitus assault of a gay man in a park. Bernitt cleverly avoids characterizing either the gay frat brother or the gay victim of the park attack, and instead exercises various versions of prejudice and fear. This gives the play a tone more palatable to centrist audience members, who might shy away from any oratory by overtly dogmatic, liberal characters. Unfortunately, by restricting his most cogent homophobic arguments to that of the narrow-minded Bible-clutching brother, and the simplistic, jockish fraternity president, Bernitt doesn’t fully develop the play’s most provocative point: in a world in which violent acts are perpetrated against individuals based on sexual orientation, everyone shares the guilt.
Bernitt makes this important point through the portrayal of the orphaned brother, who gets distressed by the fraternity’s homophobic slang and rejection of the Gay One. This brother appears to be tolerant and accepting, even indifferent when his brother comes out in the middle of a Chemistry tutoring session (spurred by an obscure association between Chemistry acumen and the gay brother’s toxicology hospitalization following a shame-driven suicide attempt). And yet, Bernitt suggests and then drills home, this guy, too, is guilty. He’s a part of the ideological atmosphere in which hate crime happens. It eventually comes out that this brother is objectively as well as ideologically implicated in the fraternity’s culture of homophobia, but even before this revelation, Bernitt suggests that he shares the guilt. I rather wish he’d kept this character’s guilt at the more complex and provocative level of complicity, which incorporates us sitting in the audience. We all perpetuate homophobia, simply by accepting a society that rests on a homophobic status quo. And thus, we all contribute to the atmosphere in which hate crimes occur.
Bernitt’s play was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Drama , and it’s easy to see why such a powerful play dealing with the culture that surrounds hate crimes was touted by the GLBT organization. It’s especially interesting to consider Bernitt’s play in its current political context. In July of this year, Congress passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (better known as the Matthew Shepard Act), which empowers federal authorities to get involved in local investigations and prosecutions of criminal acts considered to be motivated by prejudice. The new Act expands the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation, an extension many groups consider overdue considering the proportional volume of sexuality-motivated aggressive acts. The Act is particularly significant in a state like Indiana, which does not have hate crime sentence enhancement laws.
The passage of hate crimes laws is naturally controversial, even within the communities that most appear to benefit from the laws. I recommend this thoughtful article questioning the effectiveness and integrity of hate crime laws. The article raises stimulating questions about the inconsistencies between campaigns for “human rights” and campaigns for tougher sentencing, the redundancy of enforcing stricter punishment on crimes whose punishment is already unequivocal, and the fact that taking a stance on hate crime laws often amounts to a wimpy and ultimately hollow political move by legislators eager to appear “progressive” without risking going the full distance in creating a truly equal society.
As Bernitt’s play suggests, the only way to actually protect people like the Michigan teenager who was just recently attacked because of his sexual orientation is to address the pervasive homophobic culture. Sure, we can pass laws that make us look tougher on prejudice, when it materializes in violent acts. But what we really need to do is pass laws that disentangle prejudice from every institution of our society. There are two big, glaring homophobic / heteronormative institutions in the US where we can start: marriage and the military. And in 29 states, it’s still legal to fire someone for divulging he or she is gay. If we want to end violent prejudice, we must first and foremost end such institutional prejudice. We ought to pour our energy into creating a society in which “family values” is no longer a term that can senselessly be wielded to condemn certain family profiles, in which patriotic courage rather than sexual orientation is the primary consideration of a person’s fitness to serve in the military, and in which job performance and workplace behavior are the only things employers evaluate. Etc, etc. The unctuous backing of hate crimes legislation cannot be a substitute for pursuing actual equality.
Bottom line for festival-goers: Bernitt’s play is good. It’s thought provoking. It’s emotionally stirring, and very well-acted. It’s not perfect, but it initiates a conversation that we must continue to have. See it.
Bottom line for everyone: we’re all implicated by the terms we accept in our world. If this troubles you, do something about it.
http://www.indianaequality.org/Default.aspx
http://www.hrc.org/
http://gayrights.change.org/actions
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/index.html
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