This week, two non-linear theatrical events. Bookended by brilliance, the fourpart “Lamentations” (Oct. 3-7) offered another example of the importance of Butler University to Indy’s artistic life.
Here’s a trivialized rundown of how this production worked. First: “The Book of Lamentations,” the wail of a conquered city and a people played out through ritualistic dance, music and sound. Second: A drummer and actress performed Sam Shepard’s series of character monologues, “Tongues.
” Third: A pair of actresses in rectangular boxes suspended from the ceiling performed Samuel Beckett’s “A Piece of Monologue” with minimal movement while a hunched actor, below, torturously took a 20-minute-or-so orbit around a lamp. Fourth: Two dancers in Plexiglass cages slowly moved while feathers drifted down from the ceiling, a boy soprano sang “Converte Nos” (composer Frank Felice’s Latin setting for Lamentations 5:20) and the walls provided the text of the expulsion of the Garden of Eden. A head-scratcher?
Perhaps. But apart from the Shepard and Beckett pieces (whose dense texts shifted the work too far from the visceral to the intellectual), the result was deeply moving, whether you understood the intent or not. The ample talents of directors, choreographer, composer and designers came together to create a production as visually inventive—and with as much emotional impact—as anything I’ve seen in Indy.
In such a collective work, it seems unfair to single out particular performers, but I can’t resist praising frighteningly focused Michael Burke in the Beckett piece and the exquisite soprano of Simon Roberts in the finale. The result: A work that no doubt hit everyone differently but, for those open to it, shook the soul.
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