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Peer Reviews Strike-Slip: Nuance Only Richter Could Appreciate By Todd Zeigler
We have an advantage as spectators when it comes to certain terrestrial phenomena. Cloudy skies, tornados, and thunderstorms can all be seen well off on the horizon. Earthquakes, in contrast, sneak up the way a rubber-soled Chuck Taylor sneaks up on an ant. Our powers of perception are not so advantageous when natural occurrences are poorly employed as metaphors on stage. With Strike-Slip, Humana Fest veteran Naomi Iizuka proposes to liken the haphazardness of human interaction to the movings and shakings (pun thoroughly intended) of the fault lines running beneath the City of Angels. Sometimes delicate and imperceptible, sometimes the pinnacle of violent upheaval -- always unpredictable. Iizuka's visual metaphor is precariously faulty (pun not-so-much intended). You can see every tremor coming from a mile away.
The Humana Fest literature states that Iizuka was commissioned to write a play about the at-times tumultuous tapestry of Los Angeles' citizenry. Others have likened the show's character composition to the Oscar-winning Crash. One could also draw parallels to Do the Right Thing and any number of Very Special Episodes and Afterschool Specials. Iizuka seems to want to show types that inhabit the city. The engaging and entertaining approach would be for the characters to transcend their types and face their struggles as three-dimensional people. Instead, the Pamela Brown Auditorium's vast expanse of stage, unadorned by drops and employed from wing to wing, serves as a makeshift sampler platter for contrived intensity and cliché resolution. One almost expects to hear "we'll be right back after these messages" at intermission. The performers do fine enough work with what they're given. Tim Altmeyer, in particular, effects an awkward "man of the house" machismo as Dan Morse, a seismologist house-hunting with his wife, which finds justification as his relationship to another character is revealed. But these performers simply aren't given much to embody. Direction might simply have amounted to "do that righteous black anger thing now" or "slip into hyper-kinetic Latino-speak that shows you haven't transcended your roots." The size of the auditorium and lack of reflective surfaces to fill it was also a slight detriment to the actors. The ears took at least five minutes to attune, and the struggle to project led to some awkward line deliveries. The structure of the play is odd as well. The melting pot is set to a gradual boil à la Do The Right Thing, but climaxes in a singular moment of violence at the end of Act One. The formerly swollen bubble of tension just seems limp throughout Act Two. The characters are left reeling and meandering against a gentle current until the whisper of a resolution at the end. A few well-placed jokes keep the audience from getting too restless, but what was the point of the intermission in a 90-minute workout that's 45 minutes of cool-down? The aesthetic elements of the play are winners, even if serving an uninspired text. Scenery is kept minimal and mobile to suggest the essentials of a location and then get out of the way. Sound designer Andre Pleuss deserves special mention for his quadraphonic torrent of white noise and police sirens. He brings the commotion to breathtaking crescendos at key points, and even slams Act One into intermission in a way that was more engaging than the actual show. Actors Theatre is ever-reliable for technical accoutrements that do a show -- any show -- credit. But assembled talent can only do so much for a show that inspires all the emotional resonance encapsulated in the phrase, "So what?" Spectator catharsis should be a sudden rush of feeling -- empathy, outrage, whatever. This amounted to emotional flatulence. Thank goodness the aftershocks will be brief.
Strike-Slip
Posted Mar. 21, 2007 |
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