Theater Review - Expletive Delighted
8 1/2 x 11 mouths off against censorship
In Dad’s Garage Theatre’s evening of short plays 8 1/2 x 11: Live and Uncensored, a team of actors, directors and playwrights speak out on the topic of censorship.
They’re against it.
The contributing writers were given a mandate to take on taboos or hot-button issues, but not all of the short works address censorship directly. The unifying theme brings an edgy energy to the production, making the show greater than the sum of its parts. Still, Uncensored seldom proves quite as daring or provocative as it thinks it is.
In “Sandal Man,” Urinetown co-creator Greg Kotis comments overtly on political oppression. The hero (Tim Stoltenberg) announces, “By wearing sandals, I’m saving on socks!” but he soon runs afoul of the Shoe Police and endures brutal beatings, interrogations and prison terms due to his fashion choice. Flamboyant bits of slapstick neatly punctuate “Sandal Man’s” short, eloquent political statement.
Not surprisingly, several of the short plays focus on sex. Caridad Svich’s “Self Made” depicts two revealingly clad women (Katy Carkuff and Alison Hastings) who alternate between passionate embraces and escape attempts. Hastings portrays the more carnal one, and Carkuff the more spiritual partner, but they switch from dominant to submissive and may not even be the same person from moment to moment.
Hang me if I know what “Self Made” is literally about: The beat-poetry dialogue never provides a straightforward story, although the imagery made me think of impoverished immigrants caught in the American sex trade. But any interpretation the viewer wants will stick to Svich’s steamy, enigmatic duet.
“Swallow” by Steve Yockey also puts its sensuality front and center: Actor John Benzinger enters nude except for a strategically placed sheet. His character describes what it’s like to be openly gay in public, but he’s unable to achieve physical intimacy because of his sensitivity to what other (heterosexual) people may think. He finds release in a potentially self-destructive sexual practice, revealed in discomfiting detail. The play’s combination of unnerving material and striptease tension gives the work a real charge, and Yockey’s writing shows keen insights into the nature of sexual kinks. Seeing “Swallow” is like getting all the content of a NC-17 movie in a blessedly condensed form.
“Swallow’s” notion of personal censorship sees a variation in Rich Hutchman’s “Hurtz,” a series of vignettes about yuppie corporate “team members” meeting on their daily shuttle bus. Their high-fiving camaraderie disintegrates when one (Benzinger) grows obsessed with an unseen, emasculating female co-worker. Benzinger’s hilarious mood swings unleash the masculine anger and anxieties that lie just beneath the surface of modern corporate culture, which sugarcoats cutthroat competition with the language of conflict resolution.
Lauren Gunderson’s “Shift” takes a similarly critical view of science. As a nerdy egghead (Steve Emauelson) contemplates a groundbreaking discovery of alien intelligence, his thoughts turn into increasingly sexist fantasies. Not only does he gradually transform into a Shatner-esque action hero, his female co-worker (Hastings) becomes more kittenish, flirty and docile. “Shift” suggests that scientists may be the least likely people we want to trust with science.
Heather Woodbury, writer of the eight-act stage novel Whatever, offers a broadly political kaleidoscope with “Eos, Daughter of the Dawn.” Points of view constantly shift, beginning when Hastings enters as a Burka-clad woman recounting a country’s anti-feminist policies, then shifts in mid-sentence to a grieving American mother wearing a T-shirt that says “George Bush You Killed My Son.” Hastings’ ability to negotiate such emotional twists affirms that there’s more to her talent than the sex appeal she displays in the show’s first half.
“Eos” can be almost hilariously heavy-handed: Carkuff sings a verse of the Statue of Liberty’s “Give us your tired ...” motto, then she and Hastings raise bloody coat-hangers. But “Eos” concludes with a drawn-out, pitch-perfect corporate announcement that mixes clichés about “wholesome values” with hints of predatory management and employee desperation. A throwback to 1960s-style street theater, “Eos” will have a home as long as protesters hold rallies against big business and the World Trade Organization.
In the company-created “The Final Word,” the cast recites an overlapping fugue of banned art titles (including the Atlanta production of Naked Boys Singing). Without a more pointed or surprising conclusion, though, the shout-out to art’s martyrs feels self-serving. Overall, 8 1/2 x 11 serves more to confirm the pre-existing attitudes of bohemian artists and audiences rather than challenge them directly. No one who sees the show will question such messages as “Corporate and government institutions can act against the public good” or “People with unusual beliefs should be tolerated.”
Frequently funny and lively, 8 1/2 x 11: Live and Uncensored features a salty swear-word here, a Sapphic kiss or R-rated glimpse of nudity there, but runs very little risk of suppression itself. “Swallow” and moments of “Eos” and “Self Made” can be truly challenging, but otherwise Uncensored opts to pursue easy targets, rather than attempt to butcher some of our society’s genuinely sacred cows.