Heart of Concept
Louder was produced by Verdensteatret, a Norwegian company. Company
members travelled to the Mekong Delta to absorb material for this non-linear
piece. The objects of the set suggest a gym, with speakers scattered on the
floor instead of weights, and instead of a Nautilus machine, the huge spindly
legs of a spider. Images on the back screen include the jungle, indigenous architectures
intricately deconstructed, fish playing before a pagoda, and a long, ominous
warship. There are drawings of death and war, some from Brueghel.
Cut-outs move across the stage in a rope. And there's some pretty clever lighting.
When the cut-outs themselves aren't lit, they cast shadows on the lit backscreen.
And when they are lit, the backscreen is dark. Actors,as well, lit or shadowed
meticulously. They're actors on stage, or musicians, not characters.
There's next to speech, but there's babbling, hollering, shrieking and, throughout,
the unidentifiable sounds of the rain forest. These last crescendo to the point
of our using the ear plugs we were given at the door.
The effect is evocative, engrossing - really terrific, if somewhat confusing.
There's more than a little Heart of Darkness here, overwhelming and oppressive.
The company has left the referent behind and produced something abstract. For
those with the background, however, it evokes Southeast Asia. A Vietnamese friend
in the audience said it all took her back to her childhood. Those speakers,
which rotate on different axes, and into which actors peer for no apparent reason,
refer to the propaganda speakers throughout Vietnam.
It's all a postmodernist combination of abstraction and reconstruction. It
appeared at PS 122, off-off-Broadway,
Steve Capra
September 2008