Stanley Townsend as Man in Paul Muldoon’s Incantata.
Incantata, by Pulitzer Prize–winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon, is an elegy crafted into a theatrical narrative that loosely weaves together erudite poetic imagery and concrete memories with literary and artistic references. The experience is a journey through bumpy waters, a sensory and linguistic adventure with Stanley Townsend, a tremendously talented and physical actor, at the helm of the solo show.
Townsend, a tall, disheveled-looking man, plays a character simply named Man. He appears in painter’s overalls, and his long, fringy gray hair flops along the middle part when he moves across the stage. Townsend captures a wide range of emotions, from vulnerable to defiant, in astonishing ways. One moment, he’s a sad sack; mouth drawn down, shoulders slumped forward, overcome with disbelief and grief. The next, he manically bounces around to a Blondie song, mouthing along: “One way or another, I’m gonna get ya, I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya…”
An in situ camera captures the tragicomic expressions of Man (Townsend) as he narrates about love and loss. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Incantata was written in memory of Muldoon’s companion, Mary Farl Powers, an American-born artist who lived in Ireland and died of cancer at age 43. A small stage is packed with the indicators of an artist’s life: a long table, abstract marks on paper pinned to the wall, and a pile of potatoes sit in one area, with a hoe propped in the middle—a nod to life in Ireland.
A video mounted to a mannequin that resembles a female figure projects Townsend’s face against a back wall. The in situ video projections (by Jack Phelan), artfully deployed by director Sam Yates, are used beautifully to enhance the narrative. Townsend’s face is projected to tragicomic proportions and enlarged or shrunken according to the actor’s proximity to the camera.
Some of the video projections are inspired by Mary’s etchings and print work, which have an enchanted feeling. Squiggles float across the paper and have both an ethereal and a concrete feeling, much like Muldoon’s poetic language. At one moment, Townsend shifts the camera to zoom in on a viscous ball of paint as he moves it across a piece of paper, leaving a gooey trail. These moments create rich visceral experiences. As artists, each one’s work must have spoken directly to heart of the other, and Muldoon’s pain at losing Mary is like a clap of thunder throughout the play. It jolts you to attention.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychologist, identified five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They are prevalent in Muldoon’s poem. The language is both abstract and concrete. Sometimes it’s a train of thought, a myriad of emotions crashing against one another. At other times, it is punctuated by grounding and beautiful details that give us a glimpse of Mary in life: “Of your habit of loosing the drawstring of your purse, and finding one scrunched-up, obstreperous note and smoothing it out and holding it up, pristine and pellucid.”
Yates keeps the one-hour show moving in surprising and unexpected directions. At one point, Townsend attacks the pile of potatoes with a hoe. He seems possessed, or is he incantata, which means “spellbound” in Italian? Spellbound by memory, sadness and reconciliation?
Paul Muldoon’s Incantata runs through March 15 at the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 West 22nd St., between 6th and 7th Avenues). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; matinees are at 3 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are $50-70 and can be purchased online by visiting irishrep.org.
