Through October 18, 2008
Reviewed by Steve Callahan
A small miracle occurs at the Chapel on Skinker. It's like the phoenix arising from its ashes. Over fifty years ago Jules Feiffer's moody, doodly modern dancer first announced, "I dance to Spring!" Alas, the spring of 2000 was her last Spring, as Feiffer retired from his weekly comic strip and the wispy interpretive dancer had to hang up her tights. But, lo! She is reborn! On the stage of the Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble you can see her evoking entities every bit as primal as Spring. In fact that's the title of the piece--Primal. There are actually twelve artists in this show, all in black tights and leotards (or their close approximation). But it is Ellie Schweyte--willowy and slender as an ink line--who seems to flow directly from Feiffer's pen.
Slightly Askew is a company led by Margeau Baue Steinau and is based on training in the Viewpoints system. Primal is the result of workshopping a concept by Pamela Rekamp It's divided into a number of basic human emotions, needs and experiences--hunger, shelter, sex, touch, violence, fear and so on. The segments are grouped into divisions called "Jo", "Ha" and "Kyu", which are Japanese for "beginning", "middle" and "end". (Why Japanese when the English would be perfectly clear? Well, Japanese is more magical, isn't it?) Each segment is presented in precisely focused movement, with sometimes song--once even a Latin chant. Sometimes there are fragments of dialogue; often there is music. Overall there is a seriousness, a sincerity, an aura of the genuine. The segment on "Sex" is quite beautiful, the one on "Touch" is the epitome of tenderness. At one point, with the entire company lying sprawled and cuddled together there is the strong evocation of Ferdinand Hoddler's eerie and disturbing painting, The Night. Perhaps for me the most striking section was the one on "Fear". After so many years of comfort I had really forgotten what fear was like. This performance reintroduced me to it. It doesn't present a thing to be feared, as in a horror movie; with its whispered fragments of dialogue ("Don't tell your mommy!") it presents the very essence of Fear itself. Some pieces are not so effective; in the piece on "Expression" each member of the company recites the spiritual attributes of a color, then proceeds to splash, spatter, daub, sponge, smear or scrawl that color on a large blank sheet. The result is--nothing in particular. But overall the evening is fascinating.
Viewpoints is the hot latest entry in a string of quasi-spiritual actor training "systems" that extends all the way back to Francois Del Sarte's system of declamation in the 1830's--and includes (notoriously) the Stanislavsky "Method". Actor training, now that I think of it, is not unlike management training. In each case the basic skills can be taught in a straightforward manner. But how is one to achieve greatness? I suspect that great actors, like great managers, really don't know how they do it. But in each generation there are tides of young aspirants eager to buy into some philosophy that promises the esoteric key to success. So "systems" arise, each with its prescribed exercises and with its invented vocabulary which serves both as catechism and as shibboleth--that is, it allows quick discrimination between insiders and "others". Now usually such systems are based on a handful of really good, common-sense concepts, but they're padded with enough waffle to fill out that first book. And they enshrine that jargon! They often inch toward the status of religion--even cult.
The practitioners of such systems often buy wholesale a set of maxims. One of the Viewpoints maxims, according to Slightly Askew, is that "there is no right or wrong in terms of choice". I'm sorry, but that is sheer nonsense. Of course any options must be freely considered, but in developing a role an actor makes thousands of choices; each choice involves the rejection of a "wrong" option for one that is "right"--better, more effective, more valid.
I'm a skeptic in so far as acting "systems" are concerned. But if, as in the case of Slightly Askew's Primal, such a system can produce affecting works that probe the human soul, then I'm willing to suspend my cynicism for a while and allow my self to be moved. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 PM at The
Chapel, 201 South Skinker Boulevard in St. Louis. For more information
call 314-835-7415.
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