Éire go Brách - Abbey Theatre's Terminus

Now I wanted to see this play in part because I am of Irish descent.
I wear a Claddagh ring.
My son is named Declan.
I like green.
And this show is from The Abbey Theatre in Dublin.

But this show makes me want to apply for Irish citizenship.
(Full disclosure: I'd apply anyways, but I'm just sayin'.)

Three incredible actors stay in one solitary small platform each for the whole show. They speak in rhyming couplets that go back and forth bouncing and cascading throughout. As their stories progress, the narratives begin to intersect and crisscross. While the actors don't interact with each other directly, their emotions, yearnings, and desires certainly simmer with occasional explosions of revelations.

I have become jaded with theatre over the years. I get too analytical or picky and find that with many performances much of what I see is without depth. Not so with "Terminus." By the end I was weeping with both sorrow and joy. It is a fantastical tale full of demons and murder, dates gone wrong and vigilante justice, car chases and beatings. Sounds like a real crowd pleaser, doesn't it?

But here's the thing, Terminus is filled with so much humor, so much hope, and so much humanity that one leaves the play with a greater sense of being. While their journeys may end when the lights go out, you will be continuing the tale for long after.

Posted by Brian Costello
PICA
UTR Press Corps

200 Harry Caul's - Back to Back Theatre's small metal objects

Like the opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola's oft over-looked masterpiece "The Conversation," 200 of us sat with headphones attached to our heads and monitored a desperate conversation involving a Hitchcockian MacGuffin object hidden a locker within the bowels of the Whitehall Ferry Terminal.


We can't quite see the performers for a while, due to the ebb and flow of people coming and going to Staten Island; and we don't really know what they're talking about. Before long, we, as an audience sitting on risers in the middle of a busy ferry terminal become a performance ourselves with the hundreds of "innocent bystanders" watching us look back and watch them. It becomes a standoff of audience headphones vs. travellers' iPods. Surveillance vs. Participation. Reality vs. Fantasy. Who's watching who?

Through it all, the wizards at Back to Back seamlessly move between the throngs and as we get our bearings, we become engrossed in the rising stakes and emotional pull of the two friends. One wants to sell the item. The other is having an emotional crisis. The seller won't leave his friend. The buyer is anxious.

A simple equation that works to incredible effect with the backdrop of security, eavesdropping, and constant monitoring.

As the final line in "The Conversation" ominously states,

"We'll be listening to you."

Posted by Brian Costello
PICA
UTR Press Corps

Regurgitophagy - I Sing The Body Electric

Michel Melamed attaches electric nodes to his wrists and ankles. He proceeds to go on a monologish trip covering politics, love, and food. However, every cough, laugh, murmur, or outburst from the audience is transmitted into shocks that shoot through Melamed's body.

And just when you think he's faking it, he hooks up an innocent audience member and gently shocks them. Much to their surprise.

It is a visceral piece, to say the least. Contested and contentious, one wonders if Melamed is in a battle with the audience. He wants your response and yet pays a price for it.

While it is shocking, it is not the shocking I would expect. And in the end, is it merely a trick? To what end does the shock of electricity take us?

I leave you with Walt Whitman to ponder it further:

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

Whitman's "charge" takes on a whole new meaning with Melamed's enterprise.

Posted by Brian Costello
PICA
UTR Press Corps

Ring Ring RING! This Place Is A Desert for sure . . .

An ambitious and visually arresting piece, I was disappointed with TPAD. Bogged down a bit, perhaps, by opening festival jitters, it took a while for the performers to really get into the skin of their characters. Things felt actor-y and frantic. Coupled with this is the amazing set of massive projection screens simulcasting live feeds of scenes as they happen. Some are via placed cameras, other are via a handheld visual narrator who follows the action.

While I applaud the idea, I found the execution lacking. Many scenes were blocked and staged directly for the camera, rather than for the audience. This gives occasionally odd tableaus. But perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe some of this unsettling juxtaposition is exactly the point.

We're not entirely supposed to empathize with the characters struggling through their relationships and lives, we're only witness to the trainwreck of the journey.

That said, man, that ringing phone at the opening was maddening.

Posted by Brian Costello
PICA
UTR Press Corps

The Future of Future Aesthetics

Alas, my UTR Blogging is tardy. But blog I shall. For I saw many an amazing show
and have had plenty of time to think about them.

After walking into the Public lobby bleary-eeyed from an all night flight, I headed up to the symposium "Future Aesthetics/Hip Hop Theater - the next generation. Who's got next?" Let by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Kamillah Forbes, the discussion was collegial and more roundtably than didactic. Which was refreshing and invigorating to hear every one contribute.

A good chunk of the discussion revolved around not only who the next voices are and what will they say but also--and equally important--how do you, as a presenter/curator, help communicate that work to a broader audience. One wants to diversify audiences and market to both a theatre audience or a ballet audience, but what works for an older generation doesn't always translate for a younger.

One participant brought up the production of "Raisin In The Sun" with Puff Daddy. Was that hip hop? Was it just marketing? Was it good?

This brought up discussion again about reaching younger artists and audiences and what mechanism works best. Given that you want to hear something new but also want to expose audiences to something they're not expecting, a general consensus was built around the idea of contextualization. Context is everything.

And with that, we broke up to add greater context to the rest of UTR.

Posted by Brian Costello
PICA
UTR Press Corps

Etiquette on New York Times website

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=7303606d44afbf271c207f47683d62a888a266cc

Village Voice Review ( small metal objects, generation jeans, poetics, terminus)

http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0804,soloski,78888,11.html

New York Sun Review of Regurgitophagy and Generation Jeans

http://www.nysun.com/article/69966

Holcombe Waller at the Hilton

Go to Church. Young Jean Lee gets you to Heaven

For more years than I want to really admit I went to church every sunday, attended Catholic school and for a few years even spent some time at a religo' summer camp- where in the middle of a really competitive pre teen bocci ball game - a bell would ring and we would have to freeze, get the prayer hands on and say a little chant to the angels. Now a recovering Catholic I am haunted by guilt and after saying or doing something particularly ungodly I find myself begging forgiveness by mumbling to the air. " Sorry Jesus".

Starting in darkness and ending with a bright light YJL's Church spins you through the tenor, the vertigo inspiring ecstasy and the deep joy and sickness of the preacher and his followers.

Last fall I took in YJL's Songs of Dragons Flying to Heaven, which married sadistic / (slap)stick, a dissection of Korean American identity and the drone love perpetuated by over educated white kids. Anyone who can make me love Mariah Carey + mime in one scene deserves a close second look.

In Church I was unsettled by the glare from the house lights, left on purposefully I can only assume so one could not hide from themselves. A trio clad in calico frocks gives ripe testimony and a preacher names Jose spurt monologues that elicit memories of guitar mass compassion and slowly evolve into a fire and brimstone rant.

I was smitten by its simplicity, enamored by its raw honesty, tricked by its tricks, and revived by the choral surprises. In the end this lapsed devotee was saved by YJL- In her I have found a new religion.

Kristan Kennedy, PICA

I want to be a Superamas

Big, 3rd Episode (happy/end) by Superamas opened at The Kitchen last night.
It has me up late thinking about time, words, music, and how I look art in the world around me.
How often I repeat a scene in my head or how things play out. So many times I have or haven't said the right thing at the right time.
I knew some music I heard tonight but never quite this special. Visually, I loved what I was seeing and wanted to see it again and again. And some I did. Each of the performers amazed me in their own way.
From the modest opening song to the journey I went on-they had me wanting more. Even now I have this craving. The video footage and effects really got me excited but also loved the natural beauty of the woman in the locker room. And yes the women with their "Sex in the City" conversation. I am seeing this show again. I want to see their other works too. check out superamas.com and arrive to the show early ! I want to be a Superamas!

Posted by Wilson from Portland, Oregon.

Bang a Gong - Get it on!

Attending a Festival in a city you only dip your foot in once and a while is a feat - your jet lagged and subway weary- and although you know you might just see everyone in your field in the lobby of the Public Theater - that might not be a good thing at this moment. Still as the day goes on and the calls and emails and text messages pour in from your colleagues around the world- and every one of them says "see you tonight"- you feel a bit restored and head out. Everything seems to become part of the show and as you get closer to the Public. From about ten blocks away you can start identifying your people the clear signifiers are the UTR tote bags, the head to toe black clad ensembles and then their are the haircuts. Have I mentioned that it is 60 degrees today. As you head to the lobby- more and more and more and more and more people start filtering in and the noise rises from chatter to clang. Wait- that is UTR's Artistic Director, Mark Russell standing on the coffee bar with a gong, he is ringing in the first night Everyone has filed into their shows, and now we are back in the lobby - champagne is poured and you start seeing the faces from the catalog come alive, there is Mike Daisey who will soon tell us how theater has failed us, there is Pavol Liska and his Nature Theater of Oklahoma entourage, Reggie Watts, Young Jean Lee- then there are the art world mavericks - I spied Rose Lee Goldberg, Chuck Helm, David Henry , Olga Garay and many more. We are here - together to have our minds bent, to make connections, to fall in love with a moment on stage (or off).

Kristan Kennedy, Visual Art Program Director, PICA