Witness Relocation answers the call of "The Loon"

L-r: Eva Jaunzemis, Robert M. Johanson and Dan Safer in The Loon,
a world premiere by Safer's Witness Relocation
(photo: Maria Baranova)

Early into The Loon--Witness Relocation's new show at Abrons Arts Center--I surrendered. I knew I had no way to keep pace as its writer/monologist, Robert M. Johanson, raced through a discourse on time, on muon particles and on chaos and its possible comforts. His outpouring of words threw out a tensile, almost visible barrier between the audience and Dan Safer's dance ensemble despite the close quarters of Abrons's Experimental Theater. Safer and chorus hit back with robust gesture, churning bustle, smoldering glamour with an aura of danger; Kaz PS hit back with a barrage of projected imagery, dazzling and ambiguous. But Johanson remained a gravitational force to be reckoned with.

"How do you feel when he moon is full? Do you find yourself having strange thoughts?" he asks.

Described as "a knock-down-drag-out, dance/theater show based on 1. an educational record about loons; 2 sociologist Erving Goffman; 3. the western house; 4. late night parties that last until the next morning," The Loon is 60 minutes of overload punctuated with hostility, distraction, drunken wrenching about and tender slow-dancing to a song about sex and death. During that hour, you learn stuff--like how surprisingly easy it is for your mind to cough up two handfuls of small memories, or what are four types of cries a loon makes and the purpose of each. It is full-moon strange, indeed, a seductive collage with vibrant performances from Alexa Andreas, Kelly Bartnik, Sunny Hitt, Annie Hoeg, Eva Jaunzemis, Johanson, Vanessa Koppel, Trevor Salter and Safer.

The Loon continues through October 29. For schedule and ticketing information, click here.

Abrons Arts Center (Experimental Theater)
466 Grand Street (between Pitt and Willett Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Oh, poor Shakespeare!

Well, today I find I really must correct and amend and update and repent and atone for my earlier post about my favorites of 2009!

In fact, I find I really must correct and amend and update and repent and atone for my earlier post that noted that a performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater would be my final show of 2009.

Turns out there was a serious omission. Turns out I neglected to take Romeo and Juliet into consideration. That would be the Romeo and Juliet presented at The Kitchen by Nature Theater of Oklahoma--you know, the folks who put the "w" in mellowdrama, as they hasten to remind us. That show, indeed, is the last one I was scheduled to attend in 2009. I went last night, and now it is definitely one of my favorite things of all time.

NTO's Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper got the cracked idea to call up a batch of people and ask them to recount, to the best of their ability, the plot of Romeo and Juliet, something most had read long ago in high school (or, as they say in this play, HIGH school!) or gotten some vague sense of from West Side Story (don't ask...). The resulting text--call it, perhaps, "Falling Off the Cliff Notes"--is a patchwork of their halting or rambling responses and digressions, declaimed with overwrought verbal drama and body language by actors Anne Gridley and Robert M. Johanson.

Amid all the plot notes, Gridley and Johanson--as mouthpieces for the respondents--also tend to expound at great length on matters as disparate as teenage lust, Anna Nicole Smith, Osama bin Laden, actors' neediness, and the demise of the cocktail party where, they say, people used to go to feel smart. Elisabeth Conner also shows up to...well, I won't try to describe what she does because I don't want to spoil it for you--you are going, aren't you?--and because, well, I just can't.

It's gutsy, hilarious and leaves you aching for the real thing.

Also, Nature Theater of Oklahoma--an Obie-winning, New York City-based troupe--happens to have the best name in theater. If you don't know how they got it, click this link.

So, anyway, sorry, guys! I'mma correct the record: NTO's Liska, Copper, Gridley, Johanson, Conner and their Romeo and Juliet production officially join my list of favorites!


See them at The Kitchen, now through January 17. Here are the details.