as told by the vivian girls
Last night I went to see As Told By The Vivian Girls with Handbaggers Ed, David, and Derek, along with our director extraordinare of Die Mommy, Cheryl.
The play was amazing, but it took quite a bit of warming up to. There was a lot of what seemed to be pivotal action at the beginning. As we were wandering through the spaces we seemed to miss a bunch of things. But by the time we had all broken up and began to wander our separate ways, the action started becoming clearer.
The Dog and Pony link above explains the work in depth (go read it and return to my post…please :-p), so I won’t go into story detail except to say that it’s the kind of show that needed to occupy a space to create a world. Beyond the usual proscenium or storefront kind of show I’m used to, the company has done something extraordinary with the Theatre on the Lake.
Everyone in the audience had to wear the mask you see in the photo. It was awkward, and it afforded limited peripheral vision, but the gimmick ran far deeper than you’d expect. By having all the audience wear the masks, you always knew who the actors were (duh, no masks). Your limited vision also forced you to turn around at every noise and look what was happening. The littlest sound and you could see masked faces turning to find the action. You were also all wearing the same masks, thus you were all one of the Vivian girls.
The central character, Henry Darger, was ensconced for a good time in a room-sized box, his ‘house’, pecking away at his typewriter, eating peanuts, painting the walls, and verbally laying out the story as it unfolded elsewhere in the space. How they got the timing right on that I’ll never know, but it was impressive.
There were windows and little flip-up doors you could peek through to watch him in his room, an amazingly effective trick because as people began to peek into the room, you could see the masked faces watching the action across from you. Darger was truly surrounded by his ‘girls’ who just happened to be the audience members wearing masks. As he would walk around the room, the faces would follow him, an eerie but amazing effect.
During the final battle scene in the largest section of the space, the girls were pitted against the soldiers. During the awesome fight choreography in the round (you really were able to walk anywhere you wanted), there was a moment when Darger stepped into the space and the room went still.
A beautiful and haunting string and flute melody began to play and the entire cast went into a sort of three dimensional slow-motion tableaux. As Darger slowly ambled in among them, they bowed and curtsied in turn, smiling. It was as if he was meeting his art come to life. There was so much stillness in the room, but so much emotion as the entire ensemble shifted from scene to scene around him.
My eyes started to well up with tears.
I’m really not sure why. The music, the intense happiness Darger seemed to gain from the experience, the back-story of his lonely life, the gorgeous large-scale choreography, I don’t know, whatever it was, it moved me. And that, just that one single experience, made the entire show a success in my mind.
Art, in whatever form, should force you to emote. As Told by the Vivian Girls did exactly that. If you are in Chicago, hurry. The show ends on the 25th. For details, visit dogandponychicago.org.