Opinionist: Under the Radar 2010
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<em>Chekhov Lizardbrain</em>, a marvelous psycho-vaudeville romp from the Philadelphia company <a href="http://www.pigiron.org/">Pig Iron</a>, debuted in New York in 2008, but thanks to the <a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/12/28/under_the_radar_festival_headed_str.php">Under the Radar</a> festival it's back for <a href="http://www.undertheradarfestival.com/index.php?s=2#14">a very limited engagement</a> at the CSV Cultural Center on the Lower East Side. As difficult to describe as it is impossible to forget, the four-man show is a sort of subtle exploration of the compartmentalization of memory in response to trauma. Maybe that doesn't sound like much fun, but this inspired play is a delightful trip.<p></p>The titular <em>Chekhov Lizardbrain</em>, played by the brilliant James Sugg, serves as the evening's emcee, narrating the events with anti-theatrical mumbling enriched and amplified by Nick Kourtides's exquisite sound design. Sugg also plays Lizardbrain's alter-ego Dimitri, and as the four act, 75 minute performance unfolds, some semblance of a Chekhovian story emerges, concerning Dimitri's attempt to purchase the ramshackle Oswego home of three childhood friends. Contrasting the dandified mannerisms of 19th century theater against contemporary Dockers naturalism, <em>Chekhov Lizardbrain</em> consistently defies expectations, packing more hilarious surprises in five minutes than most conventional shows have in an hour.<p></p>At first slightly alienating, Pig Iron's nuanced and highly physical aesthetic quickly takes hold of the audience, cultivating its own interior logic, like laws of gravity on an another planet. Back on earth, it's hard to explain what the hell just happened, but this much is certain: Dimitri, a socially maladroit botanist, is being chased by his memories, and they "can smell fear." Beyond that, I can only report that each enthralling moment bubbles into the next with an idiosyncratic pulse of its own. You'd do well to check it.
<p>In from England, Andrew Dawson's minimalist <em><a href="http://www.undertheradarfestival.com/index.php?s=2#8">Space Panorama</a></em> is aesthetically ambitious: Performing alone to music from Shostakovich's 10th Symphony, Dawson tells the story of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing using only a black-draped table for a stage. A dancer and pantomime artist (who also created a stage adaptation of <em>Wallace and Gromit</em>), Dawson attempts to take the audience to the moon with just his hands and expressive face as guides. The thirty minute trip is mostly successful; at some points Dawson's gestures are too literal and simplistic, but his charming, childlike playfulness ultimately wins out. Theater's potential for magic is the rocket fuel here, and with Dawson leading the mission, it's not such a giant leap to see a lunar module and Neil Armstrong where fingers and hands should be. </p>
<p>Blending spoken word, comedy and hip hop, Steve Connell and Sekou (tha misfit) Andrews's <a href="http://www.undertheradarfestival.com/index.php?s=2#10"><em>The Word Begins</em></a> is an earnest (sometimes to a fault) and enthusiastic (sometimes tediously so) exploration of race and class in America. Though often very funny, the duo has a weakness for obvious parables, such as how spirituality is corrupted by religion, youth is turned violent by indigence, and romance is reduced to vulgarity by a bankrupt culture. Connell and Andrews give it their all, acting out vignettes about street violence and gangsta rap, and spitting spoken word poetry about the walls that divide society. Inching up into the audience's faces, the 80 minute performance is at turns strident ("we're caught in the crossfire of our own holy wars!") and brashly entertaining, as when an elderly woman in the front row is handed the mic and asked to shout, "Lick balls!" Crass comedy aside, in its best moments <a href="http://www.thewordbegins.com"><em>The Word Begins</em></a> crackles with soulful electricity.</p>