Ich kann nicht anders

photo: Carlos Cardona
Ich kann nicht anders is a strange production that La MaMa presented in January. It comes from Beton Ltd., a company from Slovenia, and another producer, Bunker, Ljubljana. The set (by sonda4 and Toni Soprano) is richly textured - it looks like a sort of messy warehouse, with lots of plastic hanging about and cigarette packs strewn on the floor. On it we find two actors and an actress, all barefoot. 

An actor opens, addressing us: “In the following 75 minutes, I will try to convince you that I am not me but someone else.” He continues in a complex speech saying “Some of you will find it boring - which will mean that you have chosen the wrong event for this evening.” He tells us the show is “75 minutes of just words”

Indeed, there’s no plot to the play. There’s intensely emotional or intellectual conversation with no clear train of thought and faulty logic. Nothing makes dramatic sense. But it’s not just words - there is dramatic action. There’s 75 minutes of the intense moment-to-moment life of the actors as they argue, challenge and castigate one another, feign suicide, make a sexual proposition, et al.

The cultural references are scattered to the point of being random: the Yugoslav Wars, the 2016 Munich shooting, bitcoin… And there’s a sound overlay. Often it means nothing, but it includes explosions that startle our nameless characters, and, most importantly, sounds of the street. These last put the trio in the context of the outside world they’re avoiding.

Much of their hyper-educated conversation concerns philosophy (“A human being has only four existential problems.”) and art (“Art cannot discuss some life experiences - such as steak.”) And of course sex. There’s quite some vulgarity, and for a time the characters prance around the stage naked for no reason.

Superficials aside, the script resembles Waiting for Godot. Like Didi and Gogo, these characters go on “blathering about nothing in particular”. Of course, they’re infinitely smarter than Beckett’s characters, but their dialogue has the same quality of being merely an activity, something to pass the time. It’s never translated into a decision. Indeed, toward the end of the piece one character says “Will we do something or not? Will we take responsibility or not?” But there’s no clear reference in the line. Do something about what? And in a moment of insight, he says “We shut ourselves in but we are doing the same shit as everyone else.”

Beton Ltd. has conceived a piece that deliberately bores and confuses. They throw ideas and words at us like a barrage of arrows and javelins in siege warfare. No one could possibly assimilate all this. They’ve executed the conceit meticulously. And no one could fault the acting of the cast (Primož Bezjak, Branko Jordan and Katarina Stegnar). If nothing else, it’s a grand feat of memorization. 

But Waiting for Godot succeeds because it never bores. Ich kann nicht anders fails because it leaves the audience out. The company has pursued their creative vision single-mindedly, like good avant-gardists, but they haven’t considered us. If this all means something, they haven’t let us in on the secret. Boredom and confusion fail utterly as dramatic techniques. It’s all self-indulgent. We don’t care about these smart, nervous characters, and with nothing to absorb us, we stop listening.

The title, by the way - I can do nothing else - is a reference to Martin Luther’s defense that he must follow his conscience. It’s intriguing, and the only key to interpretation that the play gives us.

review
Steve Capra

January 2020

Popular posts from this blog

Anouilh's Antigone

There is a moment in Fusion Theatre’s production of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone (at Theatre Row’s Studio Theatre) when Creon says to Antigone “Don’t annihilate me with those eyes.” And indeed, Antigone’s unrelenting stare does seem to be annihilating him, as it’s been annihilating everyone. As Antigone, Eilin O’Dea motivates Creon’s line so well that it seems Anouilh has written it in response to the actress. Anouilh’s play, as this production makes clear, is an important drama. Anouilh reworked Sophocles’ play keeping the ancient Greek names and keeping the action in Thebes. The characters, however, mention tobacco, blood tests, film and cars. The dissonance reminds us that Anouilh’s message of courage and moral responsibility is ageless. Anouilh has created a raisonneur in a character called simply The Chorus. Tragedy, he tells us, “has nothing to do with melodrama”. “In tragedy, argument is gratuitous,” he says, but this is a very strange line; Antigone and Creon will soo
Read more

C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert

C.S. Lewis lived between 1898 and 1963. He’s best known for his works of fiction such as The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia , although his non-fiction work is arguably more important. He ranks among the foremost 20 th -century Christian apologists and theologians. Max McLean has written a terrific solo show in which he presents Lewis in his study at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1950, C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert . Mr. MacLean is the show’s actor, and he’s co-directed it with Ken Denison. The script details Lewis’ conversion from atheism to Christianity, delineating the transformation in discrete steps. Lewis begins with his childhood in Belfast: “Mother’s death produced in me a deeply engrained pessimism,” he tells us. And “At 13 I ceased to be a Christian. At that age one scarcely notices.” He was confirmed in The Church of Ireland “in total disbelief.” The script presents us with the structure of Lewis’ life – his time at Oxford, his enli
Read more

A Blanket of Dust

Image
Photo by Sharon Kinsella In Richard Squires’ play A Blanket of Dust, presented at The Flea Theater by Delphi Film in association with Alfonso Ramos and Eve Pomerance, a woman, Diane, looses her husband in the 9-11 disaster. She’s convinced that the government is responsible for the catastrophe, and campaigns to uncover the conspiracy. She’s a Senator’s daughter, so the issue becomes a family affair. Years later, she becomes involved with Andrew, a book store owner active in the dissident movement. Andrew is also at odds with his parents on political issues (his father is in government but it’s not clear what his position is.) In frustration, Andrew commits suicide - he sets fire to himself - in protest. This is all pretty grim, but, well, it’s a grim world, and it’s good to see issue- committed theater.   Mr. Squires’ keeps his script as lean as the WTC towers. The characters have no identity aside from their attitudes toward the issue, aside from the sketchy romance. Ther
Read more