da da kamera‘s “A Beautiful View” is not a great play. It’s an okay play, a spirited two-hander about a couple of non-lesbian women who sleep together anyway. It’s light enough, with a enough iventive moments to keep me mostly awake, and the actors definitely make it worth the proce of admission, but the play is more than slightly marred by the completely absurd fact that both characters get eaten by a bear 30 seconds before the end. I think that’s all I have to say about that.
No, I’m wrong, one more thing. The play would work better as a series of sketches on “Kids in the Hall”, “The State”, or “Mr. Show”.
– – –
Then we saw Another You a one-person show written and performed by Allen Johnson, formerly of NYC, now of Seattle (where there are apparantly no Dunkin Donuts).
Dave & Acacia agree that it was horrible. I disagree with them. True, sometimes I hated it, but sometimes I loved it, and I couldn’t stop paying attention, no matter what. The play was a bizarre combination of the vulgar and the divine. One moment, Johnson’s telling stories about fucking a vacuum cleaner, or jerking off on a mannequin’s face, the next he’s talking about his connection to a higher power and crying when he talks about his Dad. It was very, very odd, and he was very rough. Here are a couple of things he said that I liked.
“If you reveal what’s inside you, then what you reveal will save you. If you don’t reveal what’s inside you, then what you don’t reveal will destroy you.”
“There’s nothing magical about being a man. It’s purely two-dimensional.”
Of course, he did have a tendency to describe things as wonderfully ugly, and wonderful disgusting, and wonderfully violent. Those moments were wonderfully bad.
– – – Then, we saw SITI‘s new piece, Radio Macbeth. Hmmm …
We discussed it afterwards, and couldn’t decide if we’d actually seen a production of Macbeth. It was actually a rehearsal (work in progress) of a performance of a rehearsal of a reading of Macbeth. Huh?
True, all the text came from Shakespeare, but if you turned off the sound, you’d have little or no idea that you were watching the Scottish play. Of course, the sound was on, and it was incredible. It was a joy just to hear the SITI actors performing Shakespeare’s dialog (and occasionally, his stage directions).
What movement they did was very cool and well-done, but they’re still figuring out what the show is, and so a lot of it was still very vague and minimal. Also, there was no ending. And despite the title, there wasn’t that much sound.
Anyway, it was SITI, and they’re just plain a cut above. The moments they created, even in this rehearsal of an unfinished work, were powerful, absorbing, moving, and better then most theatre we ever get to see.
– – –
The last show of the day was Nine Years by Lone Twin.
Look at me! Look at me! Have a great, big look at me!
The story is this: Lone Twin traveled the earth for nine years, on bikes, performing low-key experiments in personal contact and gathering audiences to share their experiences. Nine Years is a compilation of the stories they told along the way, and they story of what they gained from their travels.
This show was absolutely, thoroughly, totally great. Everyone loved it. They were sweet, and honest, and had cute accents, and the show was deep and made you feel good.
Also, it was the exact opposite of the SITI company, so it was probably the only the show we could have seen at that point and enjoyed it without comparing it to Radio Macbeth.