1. Review of OLD-FASHIONED PROSTITUTES (A TRUE ROMANCE) (May 5, 2013)
Richard
Foreman has been writing, directing, and designing his off-beat, surrealistic,
Off-off Broadway theatre pieces for half a century, but there’s been nothing
from this so-called godfather of the American avant-garde in some time. So
Foreman fans will surely swarm (or, given how long he’s been around, limp or
crawl) out of the Astor Place subway station to descend on the Public Theatre
for his latest offering, the 65-minute long OLD-FASHIONED PROSTITUTES (A TRUE
ROMANCE). Folks, the title is the best thing about it.
All the familiar Foreman devices are there--the strings across the
stage, dividing it into discrete sections; the dreamlike scenescape (but
without the once-standard perspective effects), the robot-like movements; the
peculiar costumes; the hypnotically soporific line readings; the oddball props;
the sudden blasts of unusual sound or light; the weird offstage voices that
chime in at unexpected moments; the impenetrable prose layered over with a
shmear of equally impenetrable pondering on subjects like the meaning of
existence, and so on.
Watching this deadly play (if you choose to honor it with that
appellation), whose best-known actor is Rocco Sisto, is like going back in time
to the challenging experiments of the theatre in the sixties and seventies.
Seeing the same old, same old in 2013, however, makes you feel as
if you've retrieved an artifact from a time capsule; you wonder, “Did
we really think this was so special back in the day?”
No sooner did the play start than an amplified voice said, “The
play is over.” This was repeated, midway, but it was a cruel tease, as there
was still a half hour to go. Finally, when the show really was over, the phrase
was spoken once again. The lights came up and the audience, not trusting the
voice, sat on its hands before the tepid applause began. My wife’s critique on
leaving summed it all up: “That was the longest 65 minutes in my life.”
