Brandwine Distillery Fire

I’m someone who believes you can only report on experimental theatre. To me, it’s not something you can with any justice review. It is R & D; it is not a product. Let us agree to call such events “presentations of work” rather than “shows” (even when they succeed as shows) for the only true measure of success in such work is the amount of genuine discovery on view. At any rate, this is a report, not a review, and the report in question describes a rather successful experiment.

Now: I have been in a couple of Michael Gardner’s productions, and I don’t think I am telling tales out of school when I say that he puts his actors through the rigors of the damned. Not emotionally – that is, not emotionally in the sense of actors getting overwrought from identifying too much with the joys and sorrows of their characters’ journeys. What his projects do is tax the actor physically and mentally, kind of like that game show Wipeout. The actor is given line readings and (sometimes physically challenging) movements unrelated (or let us say not obviously related) to the meaning of the text. Memorization is always a hurdle; adrenalin flows like jet fuel. These challenges may not be apparent to the audience, who merely see people moving and talking onstage like they always do, only this time more illogically. This is because the artists are also hiding their exertions, an added proof of their skill. Those in the know are especially well-placed then to testify to the talent on display and the efforts involved in the present case.

Taking several short scenes and monologues by Matt Freeman as the text, this septet, beautifully appointed in evening clothes, deliver Freeman’s fairly naturalistic (though funny) dialogue in very specific line readings that clash and jangle with the script, making us hear the words (and sometimes not hear them) in new ways. The happiest surprise to this observer was Gardner’s use of the entire room, including the audience, as the playing space, a gambit I am frequently hoping for, but rarely witness. (Timid ones, be unafraid. There is no audience participation). The set itself is pressed into service occasionally, pieces of furniture being made to defy both sense and gravity, just like the actors. (Three chairs for the New Naturalism! Three chairs for the New Na—sorry).

Of the ensemble, I’ve worked and/or watched five of them (Maggie Cino, Ivanna Cullinan, Sarah Engelke, Alexis Sottile, and Moira Stone) for years. Seven, if you include Gardner and Freeman. (I’m one of those who believes that, far from making me subjective, the familiarity gives me greater insight.) Steve Burns I’ve actually watched and enjoyed on television, back in the days when my kids watched Blues Clues. That leaves only Kina Bermudez as previously unknown to me, but what an excellent introduction!

At any rate, this is genuinely new, solid, exciting work. If you’re the conservative type who needs to be spoonfed the baby food of literalness, steer clear not only of this production, but of the entire Incubator Arts Project, and probably also several New York zip codes. Oh, yes. And me.

Brandywine Distillery Fire starts its second and final week at St. Marks Church tonight. For full info, go here.