"The Event" at The New Ohio Theatre
The Event
Performed by David Calvitto
Writted and Directed by John Clancy
9th Annual Solo Nova Arts Festival
The New Ohio Theatre
Reviewed by David Roberts, Chief Critic
Theatre Reviews Limited
07 June, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Shakespeare enjoyed commenting on the process of playwriting and performance in his plays. The careful reader can hear Shakespeare’s dramaturgy within Hamlet’s comments to the actors visiting Elsinore. Hardly a tragedy, comedy, or history proceeds without the Bard using the stage to share his unique views on producing, acting, directing, and viewing theatre. Shakespeare, Aristotle long before him, Uta Hagan long after, all contributed to identifying and naming the conventions of the thing we call the theatre.
It would seem that “The Event” is such a comment on all things theatre: acting, directing, stagecraft, even reviewing. If only “The Man” did not smile so much (telling the strangers in the audience he was, in fact, smiling). If only he did not assert that all was expendable. If only while celebrating moments of clarity and calm, he did not allude to the apocalyptic warning that we are becoming “unmoored.”
This might be a good time for this critic, this professional observer, to identify an allusion to “The Second Coming,” that haunting post Civil War, pre World War II poem by William Butler Yeats. Professional observers of theatre do not mention Yeats much anymore but, in this case, this stranger in the audience has no choice. The speaker in “The Second Coming” observes:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Perhaps that is “the rub.” “The Event” is ultimately about not just what happens on stage but how that connects to what happens when the lights dim and the strangers in the audience scramble out into some real or artificial light, out into some real or artificial darkness. The Man reminds the strangers – smiling, sometimes not – that all he and we shared for a mere sixty minutes is ultimately “too large for language to catch and haul aboard.” That said, John Clancy manages to construct a script that conveys that certainty with exceptional skill and grace.
One of the strangers sitting in the dark, a professional observer, smiles and determines that the Man is brilliant. But the professional observer is certain the Man has heard that before: that very word used in the past to evaluate his participation in the Event. Further, the professional observer knows the actor portraying the Man will either welcome that assessment, or dismiss it, or – perhaps worse – be indifferent to it. That would be for the professional observer the worst possible outcome. But he and the Man both do what they must do, and move on.
“The Event” for an hour masks the Man and when the Event is over, the mask must come off. It has to: that is one of those coveted conventions of theatre. The Man cannot even assume a pseudonym like ‘Bob’ or ‘Walter.’ He, sans mask, will be (as he always was) David. This David subtly, craftily, deliberately decides to connect. That connection reminds us that though “we are all playacting,” we with Yeats, with masks off, must eventually gather somewhere to see “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.” That connection is David’s and John’s wonderful gift to their audience. Go to The Ohio Theatre and receive that gift, unwrap it, and pass it on.
“The Event”
Presented by the terraNOVA Collective at The New Ohio Theatre, 154 Christopher Street (between Greenwich and Washington) in Manhattan. The schedule of remaining performances for “The Event” is: Sunday June 10 at 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday June 12 at 7:00 p.m.; Friday June 15 at 9:00 p.m.; and Saturday June 16 at 2:00 p.m. For ticket information and a list of all Arts Festival performances visit www.terravovacollective.org
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 | Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Saturday, June 9, 2012 |
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