Week of April 2, 2009, Issue #702
ARTS
Secret Diary of A Collapsed World
Fawnda Mithrush / fawnda@vueweekly.com
Those lucky enough to catch Mile Zero's short-lived mainstage show are likely still trying to shake the sense that they've just been toured through the dream-sequence of an avant-garde film. The obtuse, metaphoric images latent in the works of Maya Deren come to mind between recollections of dancers floating down staircases, the clanging of falling spoons, massive looming shadows and pantless men slithering over pianos.
Perhaps it wasn't all so eerily disconcerting as Meshes of the Afternoon, but Secret Diary of a Collapsed World (Part 1) was a performance experience to behold, not only as an intoxicating phantasm of a cabaret show, but also as a unique, playful take on the concept of character study. Essentially, the show is performed in its entirety twice, but as an audience member one is transported between spaces to examine opposing scenes of the show and different sides of the characters therein.
The Freemason's Hall, like a crumbling photo album of an aging relative, unfolds to reveal a multitude of sets; one behind a deep-blue stage curtain where an accordion player sits at a piano, one on a set of old wooden stairs where a man and woman scrape up and down in very, very slow-motion, the stairs leading up to a loft where a melancholy young woman realizes the infidelity of her lover.
Much like flipping through the pages of a family epistolary, the show reveals the diaries of eight characters, the shifting format allowing some incredibly memorable images (in particular those involving the audience itself) that challenge the very notions of memory and perspective.
While in the main room of the hall, dancers roll amid a ring of seats as floor lights cast towering dark shapes on the walls around. There's a twinkling of sound behind the stage curtain (the thick breath of accordion is faint but present, you know Wendy McNeill is in there somewhere), and all of a sudden the velvet flicks open to reveal a cast of 40 or so onstage, including McNeill. They're watching her, they're watching you. And you're watching them. It's a stunning, reflexive moment that burns on the psyche, and when the show spins around and you're huddled behind the curtain with the other half of the audience (those who sat onstage before are now in your former seat), you get to see how the scene was built in the first place: a man slides in on top of the piano, ever so slowly tumbling over the keys and onto the stagefloor, his pants resisting the urge to stay on his waist. He pulls them up, smiles, and whisks open the curtain to reveal the main room of the hall. You remember this, of course, but now it looks completely different.
Not a conventional dance piece by any stretch, the deftness of the performers remains both emotive and thoughtful. Where the show truly succeeds is with the guidance of ushers: the show clips along through character solos and scenes, and though there was an abundance of eye candy, the layout allowed for only the most appropriate paths through the visual melange. Though the audience was used as part of the show, the dance was not intrusive, but welcoming. It was a diary I'd like to crack open one more time, if only to hold the pages up to yet another, different light. Perhaps MZD's Part 2 will offer even deeper, darker secrets. But for that, we'll have to wait until next season. V
Social Bookmarking
Got something to say? Send a letter to the editor.
letters@vueweekly.com