| . | 04/12/2008
Dirt
By: Eugene Paul
The Austrian Cultural Forum and Dreck Productions are presenting a revival of Dirt which has won numerous European awards culminating in its appearance at the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival. Fringe festivals are fecund breeding grounds for plays in process, concepts still aborning, works finding their theatrical shapes and contents. Dirt is one of these. Or – maybe it is not. Because Dirt, performed by Christopher Domig, comes down firmly on the side of exposed verities. Or maybe their exact opposite. The artistic conceit: to let the viewer decide, also, in this case, cuts the ground from under whatever case the author, Robert Schneider, may have chosen to lay out about the travails of an Iraqi living in New York. Maybe. Because the play was originally written in German and played in several locations in Europe. Solo performances are generally easy to transport. Now, Americanized but still holding lumps of European sensibilities in text and delivery, Dirt is more red herring than fish nor fowl.
“My name is Sad”, says our apparently amiable lone character in his dingy, candle lit cell of a room, presumably underground as we are in the audience. (Under St. Marks is really under St. Marks.) Are we to think “Sad” for Saddam? With all those current over and undertones? Or “Sack”? Which, unfortunately also came to mind. He is, after all,, something of both. And in the style of the looped repetition favored by more European avant-gardists than by Americans of the ilk, he repeats his “Sad” refrain over and over, along with his obviously false declarations of how happy he is. This is not a sympathetic dramatic construction or an effective one. He also tells us – and by the way, who are we to him in this exchange? – that he is a liar and not to believe what he says. Quite. Which leaves us – whoever we are – in liar’s limbo if we believe that he lies to us. Or is that a lie, too? Well then, what choice do we have?
Christopher Domig has played “Sad” in many venues, so many that he has a mittel-Europeaan accent accompanying a set performance so structured that although he appears to contact his audience – if that is what we are – or witnesses? –he is nevertheless walled off from us by this damned question: lie or not lie. Even his spontaneities are planned. Nothing surprises him, or us. We remain ambivalent about him, about the play, because he has made his author’s point clear over and over again: we are not to believe him. Not to believe he is an illegal Iraqi resident? Well, no. That we are told we may believe. Are we to believe he likes us as he says frequently? Maybe. Or hates us? Maybe. Discovered he was wrong about us? Maybe. Or is this all to soften us up for a final debacle? Yes, well, maybe.
David Robinson has directed fairly, which is to say that he has not shied away from the faults in the play. He has not emphasized its virtues because he has not found them, but he does contribute a sense of something important being said. It is an illusion, a theatrical illusion leaving us outside the content since the truth is that there is no truth. Very veldtschmerz.
Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place. Between 1st Avenue and Avenue A. Wed-Sat 8 pm. Tickets: $20, $15 for students. 212-868-4444 or smarttix.com.
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