by Charlsie-Kern Kruger
Art is hard and it is messy and, sometimes, it takes courage.
“The Untime,” Nick Musleh’s & Jon Tracy’s effort to work with an ensemble to create what they call “an echo” of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is remarkable theatrical art. It is also hard to understand, messy in its execution, and courageous in what it attempts.
“The Untime” explores the inner lives of characters from Macbeth: The Spouse (Lady Macbeth), The One (Macbeth), and The King (King Duncan), as well as The King’s daughter (The Heir). An additional character is dubbed “The Artist” and perhaps represents Shakespeare—or any artist—attempting to understand and explain the mysterious and inexplicable world of The Scottish Play.
The piece attempts to echo Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and, being an echo, it is distant, unfinished, recognizable but strange, and seems to come at us from a far away and ghostly place. The actors are clearly experiencing intense emotions, even madness, and their needs are desperate. And yet, this emotion comes to us as if we were on an emptyfield at midnight haunted by the ghosts of battle. We can feel the intensity, we can recognize the clash of swords and the cries of the wounded, but it is all somehow far away, not really engaging us. We are moved but we are puzzled because context is missing.
The play Macbeth, it has been widely noted, moves with incredible speed through its complex story, and seems to be told in spurts as if we were watching the drama in in the midst of a dark and terrible storm, with only flashes of lightning to lead the way. It depicts a world of life that seems to be, as described in Macbeth’s famous spontanously composed epitaph for his dead wife, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”
“The Untime” adds little to our understanding of the meaning of Macbeth, which remeans obscure and frightening. What we get are characters caught in a sort of shadow world anticipating great things to come, but, as yet, nothing is lit by any hint of a flash of lightning. They are in the dark and they remain in the dark and so do we. The Artist, who makes video, tries to construct sense of their situation but is not very successful.
It amounts to a piece of “theatre of the absurd.” The characters emote with an intensity worthy of Greek drama, but we don’t really know why.
It is all fascinating and frustrating. Watching the performance I was at times intrigued, bored for long sequences, angry at being confused, emotionally struck, and intellectually both excited and exasperated. At the end of the evening, my initial reaction was, not to put too fine a point on it: “What the fuck?”
As a reviewer, I have been stymied. What to say about such an experience? For days, I’ve put off trying to respond. But, here is an interesting point: almost two weeks after seeing the production I can’t let go of it. The image and sound of Leontyne Mbele Mbong as The Spouse emitting a roar of grief and terror worthy of the most haunted figure of tragic Greek drama haunts me—and yet I can’t tell you what moved her to such a cry. It was grief in a vacuum. Similarly, the moral confusion conveyed by Michael Torres as The One will not release me from its grip. These two actors drop in and out of levels of emotional intensity that can leave the viewer shaken by its sheer physical force.
Comic relief is provided by Steve Price as The King, who, we can gather, feels threatened, but is responding with comical, almost senile confusion. The actor plays this character with hesitation, unfinished sentences, loops of illogic, and a body that is out of his control. The effect is funny yet unnerving. As his daughter, The Heir, Call Hemmingsowrth seems to be the only sane figure on stage, who might possess some clear understanding of what is taking place, but she
doesn’t share it with the audience.
Achieving this kind of intensity, while not gathering up loose threads or reassuring the audience of a story to be told, or in general trying to make the production coherent, takes a great deal of artistic guts and stamina. Co-creators Jon Tracy and Nick Musleh (the latter of whom plays the role of “The Artist” with an intense fascination that reminded me of Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now”) have gone way out on a limb with this one.
“The Untime” can be hardly be described as a typical evening out for entertainment. But if you want to see original experimental theatre that is unique, exciting, courageous, and on the path to brilliance, you probably should screw your courage to the sticking place and cough up the price of a ticket. This kind of work deserves our support!
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Rating: **** (For an explanation of TheatreStorm’s rating system, click here.)
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“The Untime” Conceived by Nick Musleh & Jon Tracy. Director: Jon Tracy. Set Designer: Randy Wong Westbrooke. Lighting Designer: David Leonard. Sound/Projection Designer: Ben Euphrat. Costume Designer; Madeline Berger. Properties Artisan: Rob Dario. Fight Director: Dave Maier. Intimacy Director: Cindy Goldheld.
Cast:
The Heir: Call Hemmingsworth. The Spouse: Leontyne Mbele-Mbong. The Arist: Nick Musleh. The King: Steve Price. The One: Michael Torres.
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