| In On It - a cryptic review of the evening |
[Jul. 15th, 2006|08:27 am] |
I saw a really good play last night.
In On It is a two man show running through the end of the
month at the OffCenter, brought to you by the dirigo group. Filling
out their survey, I realized this is the first dirigo group show
I've seen.
The play features Robert Faires and Scotty
Roberts as "that one" and "this one" and a whole lot of other
characters as well. Can I describe this as a play within a play?
Well, yeah, I could, but it's almost trite sounding and it doesn't
quite describe the spiralled unfolding of who is who and why we're
seeing them unfold themselves. The script is like a perfect chinese
conversation, beautifully circular. As one the characters says
"people like a package." People also like happy endings, for the
most part. This play offers several endings. Four, to be exact.
I was troubled by the play. I really admire a play that can
trouble me. It's harder than it looks. I engage easily, but also, I
do bore easily, my fickle attention wanders if pace is slow or I
start to feel cheated or lied to, and I dislike obvious artifice
unless it's really really obvious and amusing at the same time.
Anyway, I went for comedy, because I was in the mood to laugh, and I
did laugh, many times. What I didn't go for was the giant lump in my
throat and the spill of unwanted tears. I didn't know I didn't want
them until they splashed through my nicely done eye makeup with a
will of their own.
When I was a child, well through my
adolescence, it embarrassed me terribly to show that kind of emotion
in while attending theater or film. I really hated it. And then I
got over it, and sort of got into it. I don't go looking for it, but
when it happens, I let it happen without apology or explanation.
When someone cries at a performance I'm giving, it's a gift, a kala,
a truth. It's the least you can do to just let it happen. But man, I
did not want it last night. I wanted to hold it in. And I cannot
tell you why. I can feel that lump in my throat again right now.
Maybe it was the subject, the thing that evoked the tears, a thing
that's particularly loaded for me right now. No, I won't tel you
what it is. And maybe for you it would be matter of fact. Maybe.
There were about 15 people in the audience. This is easily
the best play I've seen in Austin this year, probably since
American Misfits which was a killer show. It left me in an
almost stupidly altered space - I was acutely aware that I was
saying some very stupid shit right after the show, including asking
the director and one of the actors if he had written the play, which
devolved into everyone in the parking lot telling me they had
written the play. There was some other conversation I wish I hadn't
had, too. D says I'm the world's oldest nervous teenager. But I was
just kind of open and vulnerable, experiencing the spacious effect
of a sudden emotional rendering. I didn't want to be vulnerable or
opened in that way last night, but there it was. Just like the play,
there it was. Just like the ending, there it was.
See it!
July 7 - 29
The OFF CENTER
2211-A Hidalgo
St
Austin, Tx
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