HERE Arts Center

Soul Leaves Her Body (10/08/2010)

brittany — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

New York, New York

In today’s digital age, people often communicate with each other via computer and cell phone screens rather than face to face. In recent years, Here Arts Center has taken the difficult leap of transporting this contemporary feeling of being disconnected (and yet overconnected) via the coldness of technology to the theater stage through their resident artist productions. Soul Leaves Her Body is an ambitious multimedia venture that uses choreographed dance and video, creating a production that is highly visually stimulating and innovative in its implementation, albeit somewhat fragmented and confusing in its overall effect.

The concept behind Soul Leaves Her Body is derived from a thirteenth century Chinese tale, The Soul of Chi'en Nu Leaves Her Body, in which a young woman rips her soul from her body in order to pursue a destiny in the city. The work itself is split up into three stories: One set in the thirteenth century, the other two set in contemporary times. The first segment sticks to the original story line of the traditional tale, in which a young woman meets the strange man to whom she is betrothed but to whom her mother strangely refers to as “elder brother.”

Interestingly, the segment opens with a woman obviously not of Asian descent looking out on the audience proclaiming, “I am Mrs. Chang.” Later, an older Asian woman dressed in attire appropriate for thirteenth century China stares out at the audience from a video, a persona which we understand is being embodied by this much younger dancer. An image of a traditionally dressed Chinese man is also later shown on the video screen when we see the Caucasian dancer performing the role of the betrothed. The emotions the characters feel towards one another are conveyed through movement rather than dialogue, and all three performers fully embody the tone of the work in the well-choreographed dances.

For the second segment, Jennie Mary Tai Liu—who also served as the work’s co-director and choreographer—is seen in a film as Yan, floating in an anachronistic fishing boat at the shore of contemporary Hong Kong. While she peacefully drinks tea from an old fashioned tea pot, sitting in the ancient boat, she stares back at the blinding fluorescent lights on shore, trying to find the light of her friend’s apartment amidst the chaos. Her cell phone and MacBook on board prove to be her only links to the modern world she is floating in front of. Later, she and her siblings lose their mother’s apartment, leaving them the boat as their only home, floating uneasily without a sense of rootedness.

In the third segment, Yan rings a penthouse apartment to which she feels mysteriously pulled. The action then returns to the stage as Yan and her elderly relative share similar experiences as Chinese women seduced by foreign men, showing a connection between the past and the present.

Soul Leaves Her Body is a fascinating, innovative work, merging ancient texts with the disconnected, overly technological feel of modern life. However, it nonetheless feels fragmented. Audience members who do not read their programs or have some familiarity with the ancient Chinese fable may feel themselves somewhat lost at sea. Viewing this work is valuable nonetheless, as it successfully merges multiple mediums, creating a work of great visual stimulation.

Soul Leaves Her Body runs through November 23rd at Here Arts Center.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, November 12th 2010

MILK (5/1/2010)

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

HERE Arts Center

New York, New York

Emily DeVoti’s provocative two-act play, MILK, opens in a spare farmhouse kitchen. It’s 1984. Ronald Reagan has just been elected US president and local newscasters seem to have nothing good to report. Meg (played by Jordan Baker), a former mathematician who loves precision and order, and her husband Ben (Jon Krupp), a former investigative reporter, are sitting at the table and talking, but it’s the kind of tense conversation that can quickly turn from controlled anger to fierce argument.

Things are bad, very bad. A drought has made dairy production virtually impossible, and land that’s been in Meg’s family for centuries is now on the cusp of foreclosure. On top of this, their college-aged daughter—who is never seen but is referenced at key moments in the play—wants to be an actress and their fourteen-year-old son Matt (Noah Robbins) wants material things his parents cannot possibly afford: name-brand sneakers, CDs, a bedside color TV, and stylish clothes, among them. Worse, there’s a city slicker on the prowl, and he’s made no bones about wanting to “help” Meg and Ben ease their financial woes. Ben thinks it’s good idea, "a gift from God"; Meg doesn’t.

Ben wins.

By the time businessman James (Peter Bradbury) and his teenaged daughter, Veronica (Anna Kull), arrive on the scene—in a private plane, no less—things have deteriorated even further. But James couldn't care less about the family’s personal difficulties. Instead, he’s turning his managerial acumen to improving the farm’s productivity. Although he knows nothing about cows, he hatches a plan that, on paper, will foster unprecedented growth and save the day: importing “wild, hairy, horned” bulls to impregnate the many heifers dotting the pastoral landscape.

As you have probably guessed, things don’t pan out as James—or Ben or a reluctant Meg—expect. While the second act of the play is far weaker than the first, the excellent cast, including Caroline Baeumler as Auroch, a talking bovine the Program Notes describe as “quite possibly the last living wild cow,” briefly explore a number of evocative themes including monetary pressures; urban versus rural lifestyles; marital fidelity; self-sacrifice; coming of age; and the festering ache that often accompanies keeping silent about things that matter.

In fact, by the time Veronica tearfully confides her father’s secrets to Matt, the pathos is so intense that James instantly morphs into someone less repugnant. In the end, while we may revile Matt politically, DeVoti renders him a multidimensional personality who is deserving of compassion.

There are no easy answers in MILK. Indeed, as the world changes, some customs and practices inevitably become obsolete and are replaced by newer rituals and activities. The key is figuring out which pieces of cultural and personal history to retain and which to let go.

At one point, Meg looks into a bucket of unpasteurized milk and declares that “the pure stuff, it corrupts so easily.” Maybe so. MILK asks its viewers to think about what’s negotiable and what isn’t. Regardless of what is ultimately decided, one thing is certain: after watching this well-executed play, urban audiences will think about cows in a whole new way.

Photo credit: Jim Baldassare

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, May 5th 2010

My Life in a Nutshell (10/10/2009)

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

HERE Arts Center

New York, New York

Obie award winner Hanne Tierney’s latest work, My Life in a Nutshell, doesn’t shy away from big themes. Death, friendship, jealousy, love, lust, mourning, and carrying on in the face of life’s abundant whammies make appearances in this innovative, clever, and totally absorbing forty-five-minute puppet show for adults. Yes, you read correctly: Tierney’s play involves puppets—three males and two females—all of them life-size, and all of them able to convey the emotions you’d expect given the aforementioned topics.

The play opens on three black-clad manipulators standing on stage right. Their job is to move more than eighty strings attached to a vertical keyboard that controls Tierney’s creations. It’s an intriguing sight, but one can’t linger long on the manipulators’ fast-moving hands. Instead, the audience is immediately introduced to characters A, B, and C.

A is a French-speaking, Baudelaire-quoting intellectual who is in love with C. B is also smitten with the comely maiden. And the fair-haired C? She is an aspiring superstar who loves both men equally and sees herself as the third line in their open triangle.

Humor is abundant as the two men try to shimmy and shake their way into a more conventional dyad. But this outcome is not to be and in a somewhat ethereal scene, C is shot to death, leaving A and B bereft and seemingly alone. When the men eventually meet, a deep friendship develops.

All is well until they encounter D, a woman who, while “no longer young is fit as a fiddle.” At the same time, the middle-aged D has become despondent over the death of her lover, E. After A and B stop D from committing suicide, the three become inseparable.

As it turns out, D is an actor who has for years been channeling Gertrude Stein on stage. That is, she’d been doing this to consistently good reviews until the über-cool B points out that her performance is no longer “as edgy as it ought to be” and introduces her to hip-hop and live poetry. “What could have been a straight and boring life for everyone is not,” Tierney, the play’s narrator, announces. It’s a whole new world for D. Then, in a heartbeat it ends; A and B die.

It’s tragic, but despite her bereavement, D does not succumb to grief. “And D is left, and what is left is what she knows and what she knows is what she does. And what she does is Gertrude Stein,” Tierney tells the audience. This bittersweet conclusion affirms D’s fortitude while reminding us of the loss endemic to being human.

Produced by HERE’s Dream Music Puppetry Program and FiveMyles, a performance and exhibition space for under-represented artists in Brooklyn, New York, My Life in a Nutshell weaves vivid projected images and fantastic live music into the narrative. The end result is spellbinding and emotionally engaging.

See it and be charmed.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, October 12th 2009