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Water, Water Everywhere - But Not Much Drama
by Michael Bettencourt
Thirst: Memory of Water reviewed March 26, 2010
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| A rod puppet narrates a story of gathering water in Nairobi |
| Photo Credit:Jonathan Slaff |
| In Thirst: Memory of Water, Jane Catherine Shaw, who scripted and directed the piece, has an idea to convince us of but not a story to tell us. Consequently, what the audience witnesses for an hour is a lecture in theatrical trappings rather than a fully realized work of theater.
The idea is this: Ms. Shaw wants to examine "the topic of women and water" because, in her words, "around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water." She and the troupe of eight performers (complemented by voiceovers by Valois Mickens, Karen Kandel, Black-Eyed Susan, Emme Bonilla, and Nodoka Yoshida) then proceed to examine the topic with memoirs about women carrying water, interspersed with fables, a description of the draining of Iraq's marshes by Saddam Hussein, references to deluges in world literature, and a coda about Charon, the underworld boatman.
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| A life-sized puppet represents Ganga, Goddess of Ganges. |
| Photo Credit:Jonathan Slaff |
| This examination is aided and abetted by elements of what the press release calls "theater magic." First and foremost is the small army of puppets the performers use (designed by Ms. Shaw), such as rod puppets held overhead by one person who manipulates the head while a second person manages the hands and arms, shadow puppets, and a six-foot tall fetus (inflated by a blower through a silver tube acting as the umbilical cord). Hillary Spector, as choreographer, adds movements that keep the action flowing (including a cheeky homage to the Esther Williams/Busby Berkeley aquacade movies of the 1950s), and the ensemble does such things as ripple large swaths of cloth to simulate the ocean tides and the Ganges River and march cardboard cuts of women with containers on their heads across the stage.
But no amount of magic can compensate for the fact that we are being fed information rather than led on a dramatic journey. The individual stories rendered by the actors and the voiceovers have their wrenching and poignant elements, but they are also so similar in their content that they don't accumulate any dramatic forward-motion: they are an effort to incite drama by incantation rather than action. And Ms. Shaw introduces segments that, while dealing with water, seem off-topic, such as a momentarily cute conversation among the sand-hogs digging Tunnel 3 hundreds of feet below Manhattan's surface. The content of the work is scattershot, seemingly reflecting the widespread menu of Ms. Shaw's interests, and before long the hour-length effort begins to feel longer than its appointed hour.
A good friend of mine has a term for this kind of theater: "so well meant," meaning that the intent is earnest and sincere but that like many sincere and earnest efforts, it forgets to entertain and delight in its eagerness to grab one by the lapels and prove the rightness of its cause. Ms. Shaw and her talented troupe and staff mean well, but Thirst left me wanting something more to slake my desire for good and piercing drama.
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La MaMa (First Floor Theater)
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Category: Puppet Theater
Written by: Jane Catherine Shaw
Directed by: Jane Catherine Shaw
Produced by: La MaMa E.T.C.
Opened: March 25, 2010
Closed: April 11, 2010
Running Time: 1 hour
Theater: La MaMa (First Floor Theater)
Address: 74A E. 4th Street
New York, NY 10003
Yahoo! Maps Directions
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Tickets: $18.00
Student/Senior $13.00
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Creative Team
Conceived, Scripted, and Directed by: Jane Catherine Shaw
Choreography by: Hillary Spector
Set Design by: Gian Marco Lo Forte
Lighting Design by: Jeff Nash
Music Composed by: David Patterson
Costume Design by: Ricky Lang
Cast
Sophia Remolde
Ora Fruchter
Spice Wobbe
Margot Fitzsimmons
Kristine Haruna Lee
Cybele Kaufman
Sheila Dabney
Eva Lansberry
Crew
Stage Manager: Jamila Khan
Assistant Lighting Design: Tsubasa Kamei
Puppet Design by: Jane Catherine Shaw
Rigging Design by: Mark Tambella
Video Sequences by: John Wobbe, Eva Lansberry
Production Assistant: Kristine Haruna Lee
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