The Unheard of World
Fabrice
Melquiot
Translation
by Michelle Haner
 |
| Brian Livingston & Joan Howard |
As first
audience members enter, shadowy forms in white, wispy linen wander before and
around us with headlights and flashlights, pausing occasionally to confront one
of us. Sometimes aimless and sometimes
in more coordinated movements nearing a dance, they clang on railings, drum on
a small round stage in the center, play on instruments of all sorts (saw,
skillet, child’s piano and xylophone, a cello), and at times chant in several
solos and at other times, in harmonious eeriness. Clearly we have entered some other realm,
namely The Unheard of World by French playwright Fabrice
Melquiot as conceived by this foolsFURY Theatre Company premiere of a new
translation by Michelle Haner. Finding
their way in the opening moments will also be several, aviator-clad raindrops
parachuting from some unknown sky of roots and dirt and wondering aloud (along
with us) in wonderful and clever chatter where they have landed.
The
Netherland in which the raindrops and we find ourselves resembles a modern
kid’s playground full of tunnels, nooks and crannies, swings and ropes, and
wooden structures that look like a merry-go-round or a pyramid of seats and
slides. Thin curtains that flow from
unseen breezes and spotlights that come and go like ghostly fireflies enhance
its fantastical nature, scenically created by Noor Adabachi. We and the raindrops are soon instructed on
blackboard by our host and narrator Balthazar that this afterworld turns out to
be in fact right under us in a hollow earth. We are asked to imagine that over 70 billion
of the dead-to-date now exist in a cramped and mashed-together mass (as
demonstrated briefly by a mound of bodies in front of us). This Balthazar is the self-proclaimed first
man, now 200,000 years old, whose remains were not long ago discovered in the
depths of Africa. And here is where a
major fault of the production lies.
Balthazar
is very white, middle-aged, and hipster-looking in his flowing attire and upturned
mustache. He is more Marin County than
Africa, more modern than ancient. As
Balthazar, Brian Livingston is the underworld’s chief curator of “The Great
Everything,” a cavern of plaster casts of the first of every aspect of life
above the earth’s surface (living, inanimate, catastrophic occurrences,
invisible breaths, etc.), and he is our tour guide for the bulk of the evening. However, he never quite establishes who his
character really is and what is the framework from which we should view him. At times he a Donald Trump impresario, full
of mindless bluster and script delivered as if off a prepared monitor. Other times, he more like a clownish MC from
of a children’s Saturday morning TV show here to entertain with his prancing
and pranks. Or is he just another lost
soul searching for an identity yet to be found through his millennia of death? Maybe he is all or none of these, but this
depiction of Balthazar left me wondering and wanting something different from
the first human, now chief persona of the after life.
 |
| Deborah Eliezer |
We also
meet in this ethereal setting Odessa, a mad woman motherless on earth and still
desperate for a baby to love. Deborah
Eliezer plays this manic woman who feeds herself fresh manure on a platter,
mimicking in coos and a spoon flying through the air how a mother might try to
feed a child her food. Much time is
devoted to her crazed search in the play’s mid section; and Ms. Eliezer pouts,
rants, and cries with much ado. Again, I
found myself sometimes scratching my head why her, why I should care, and why
play her half-witted to the point of not making lots of sense. In the play’s Second Act, a purpose for her being
in the script emerges but only after way too much time to get there.
Where
character depictions work much better are in two seven-year-old children who
become central to our story and perhaps explain the playground format of this
afterlife landscape. Paul Collins is a
spastic, stubborn No Child whom we first meet in his mother’s womb where he
refuses with furious tantrum to come out until he evidently consumes her in his
seventh year, sending him (and probably her) to this next world. With a boy’s one-minded determination and yet
curious whim to explore dark spaces like an adventurer, he strikes out to
discover how to ensure no one ever remembers him. He is directed to Little Bear Girl (Joan
Howard) who exists in eternity as a little girl in tutu, now half-bear,
half-child after having been eaten by a mama bear in her last moments on
earth. Perched in her special spot,
Little Bear Girl in a slow pirouette recites names of souls who have come to
her to be forgotten. No Child comes to
her to be touched on the forehead and join that anonymous, eternal
listing. Their meeting begins a recess
of hide and seek, tag, and a childlike discovery of who they are and whom they
still might become in this dark world of forms and shadows. Mr. Collins and Ms. Howard effectively
capture the childlike innocence and playfulness as these two urchins who also
show grown-up sensibility and wisdom in their pursuits of next-world ambitions.
What
could help tremendously would be more properties and costume decisions that
support the script. No Child struggles
in a womb above our heads and then emerges in the underworld embarrassed by and
decrying time and again his nakedness.
Yet he is fully clothed the entire time in an outfit in no way
resembling nakedness. Much is said in
the script about roots, upside-down highway signs, and the millions of plaster
prototypes; yet we see nothing that might depict any of these. The one, key “plaster” prop that does appear and
is central to the climax of the story is a floppy mass of stuffed linen rather something
looking like the solid statue it is supposed to be. Just adding a few, simple touches to support
the script could have made, in my opinion, the story easier to enjoy and
digest.
Our
“Unheard World’s” inhabitants are seeking to fulfill missed ambitions and
dreams of another life and seem to long for some companionship, even love, that
may have escaped them there. Is this a
hell of no escape or just a fantastically different, next world where a new
kind of life begins? Is it where all are
heading, or is it simply one person’s dream we are witnessing? Questions arise as each new specter
appears. Answers are up in the air in
this very French, whimsical yet sometimes serious examination of how in the
next life we perhaps may strive to reproduce glimpses of this life in weird and
quirky forms.
There is
certainly much potential for this new translation of Monsieur Melquiot’s play
and the philosophical musing it engenders, but this production of foolsFURY is
a still bit too uneven and under-developed for the full effect.
Rating: 2
E’s
The Unheard of World continues in its foolsFURY
Theatre Company production at the Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco
through October 31, 2015. Tickets are
available online at http://foolsfury.org/fury/.
Photos by Robbie Sweeny
No comments:
Post a Comment