| . | 06/08/2009
Dr. C. (How I Learned to Act in Eight Steps.)
By: Eugene Paul 
Just as you begin to wonder at negotiating the premises of Theater Mitu, you are confronted with eight bodies lying in eight designated compartments on the stage area. You hardly notice the electronic consoles at the far end or the musicians you’ve climbed past. Huh. These bodies, they’re all dressed in white camisoles and white britches, men and women alike. And at the bare feet of each lies a bundle of –something. Overhead, spotlights go on and off carefully. And around the upper ranks of seats a wide band becomes a screen for mysterious, animated images, then, statements in Greek, then, a running timer, then, statements in English. From overhead, crisscrossing lighted sentences bathe the stage. Bodies twitch, spasm, eyes open, close. Are they in their spaces as in a space ship? Or a time capsule? Or coffins? Are they humans, or some kind of humanoid, robotic? “How I Learned to Act?” These blanks of human forms are to learn to act? Better look at the program.
It’s a wealth of information. The full title of the theater piece is Dr. C. (How I Learned to Act in Eight Steps.) It’s called an opera. With texts from Aristotle, Appia, Stanislavski, Artaud, Brecht, Grotowski, Brooks, Bogart. Lud, what a muddle, what a mix. Sung as well as declaimed we discover, chanted, monophonically, chorally, intricately. All movement choreographed, not only such dancing as takes place. How are the cast members to do all that plus interact with their electronic instructions, images, texts, videos, their microphones, their hand held spotlights, their musical instruments? All the company dressed alike with small variations in fascinating costumes tailored to suggest a century of bygone style. All of them play identified characters once they are given the command to act, in each of the eight modes expressing different ideas about acting, all sung as programmed, all with movement as programmed, all obeying a disembodied voice’s orders—fascinating, all fascinating. If you follow the written accounts in the programs, the labels, the explanations, you come close to realizing how much director /creator Ruben Polendo has drilled his company into a superb mechanization of his concept.
If you never look at the program but let your imagination join theirs while supplying your own thoughts (pretty much as Anne Bogart proposes in the Eighth Step), you have just as much fun, maybe more, maybe equal dimensions of admiration, of astonishment, your concepts riding on theirs. What Aristotle has to say on acting hardly serves as a foundation. Appia, perhaps, with thoughts about acting emerging. Then the huge storm of Stanislavski, his stamp on the shaping of acting and theater immutable. How does one include the pain of the offshoot Artaud represents? Watch them, they do it. And Brecht? With all his axes to grind? No time for actors. They have to reach into their expressionistic bags of tricks to fulfill his ideas. Ah – and here you suddenly remember who Dr. C. of the opera’s title has to be: Dr. Caligari. But why him? Because director Polendo could find no more basic images of basic acting forms more vivid than these. That explains the spastic movements, the twitches, the lurches, staggers, robotic motifs of movement. But – this is fundamental error; Robert Wiene, who directed the film, demanded defined, exaggerated movement for his film’s characters in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. What director Polendo’s cast is doing is ruminative extrapolations devised for a virgin cast to offer as basic acting movement, quite a different design. Nevertheless, happily, fascinating, in context or out. Polendo knows and understands the cultural forces shaping most of Peter Brooks’ directing style and philosophy (step seven) and has no trouble cheekily mocking both in his opera’s music sources, milieu, movement. He mocks Brecht as well and gives short shrift to Grotowski (step six) and his poor man’s theater. I am in awe of what Polendo and company have accomplished. Anyone interested in theater can share their discoveries and proposals if only to engage in the dialogue they have opened. In other words, argue. And enjoy.
The contributions of composers Ellen Held and Amy Charlotte cannot be overstated. And Scott Spahr’s choreographed movement is a continually inventive glue. Costumes by Candida. K. Nichols deserve awards and Kate Ashton’s lighting, Alex Hawthorn’s sound design and Jake Witlen’s video design amply enrich the production. But all hail Justin Nestor, Matthew Carlson, Aysan Celick, Adam Cochran, Nathan Elam, Laura Stinger, Emily David and Marc LeVasseur, the enormously hard working, gifted cast. They make it happen. That’s acting.
Dr. C. (Or How I learned to Act in Eight Steps) At Theater Mitu, 80 Greenwich St. All trains, World Trade Center area. Tickets: $18, student, group discounts. See theatermitu.org or 3ldnyc.org for schedule , information.
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