(Holly Holsinger as Babette)
Whether
you communicate for a living or not, the essence of connection is always in
question. Did you hear what I said? If you heard, did you understand? If you
understood, did you care?
Communication
is a vexing process, loaded with wrong turns, misapprehensions and often only
scattered, partial victories. This basic difficulty is, of course, multiplied
when technology is introduced.
That’s
where the aptly named Telephone, now being staged by Theater Ninjas, finds
its starting place: Alexander Graham Bell calling to Watson over his acoustic
telegraphy machine. From there, we meet also meet a schizophrenic woman and then
listen in on a couple dozen “calls.” The last two sections are adapted from the
challenging philosophical tome The
Telephone Book by Avital Ronnell.
Even
though it is oblique and mysterious at times, the production walks the fine
line between accessibility and confusion, never entirely sliding into
incomprehension. And teetering on that thin wire is exactly where this piece
belongs.
For
this event, the gypsy Theater Ninja troupe has landed in a downstairs room of
the Masonic Temple in Ohio City. And it is a splendid physical space, the wood
floor shared by actors and audience, accented by a beamed ceiling and pillars
with carved decorations. Four almost-parallel seating areas are interspersed
among the set’s furniture and trunks of props, creating an intimate yet oddly
isolated feel.
In
the first segment, Ryan Lucas is Bell and Ray Caspio is Watson, navigating
their world-changing invention in their own ways. This is a witty and
electrifying dialogue as we see that even the first telephonic communication
was beset with confusion. Watson thinks Bell said, “Come here, I want
you.” (not “I need you.”), with
all the subtext that the word “want” implies.
But
Bell isn’t pinging emotionally, at one time speaking in binary code. Interacting
with a wide range of technologies, from hieroglyphics to an iPad, Lucas and
Caspio are a tight fit, and their celebration after the World’s First Call is a
gem of choreography and timing.
In
the second segment, we meet Miss Saint, or Babette, who is a patient in an
asylum, suffering from telephones within her and surrounding her. Modeled on a
patient of Carl Jung, Babette is a fast-flowing stream of alienation, communicating
like crazy but never being understood, and repeating phrases (“Speech is
silver, silence is golden”) to keep a grip on her mind.
Even
though this monologue eventually seems overly long, the enthralling performance
by Holly Holsinger manages to keep it compelling by never overplaying her character’s
mental difficulties. Babette just sees herself as a normal person who is
Socrates and is the triple owner of the world—and why can’t anybody understand
that?
In
the third section, we listen to snatches of calls between disembodied lovers, and
others, as various modern and recently obsolete technologies murmur and crackle
at us in the darkness.
This
remarkable play, directed with inventive skill and sharp pacing by Jaime
Bouvier, is more of an experience than a conventional theater piece. And like Rusted Heart Broadcast , which opened a
couple days ago at Cleveland Public Theatre, it is difficult to do it justice
in a review.
As
for Telephone, among other things it asks
how technology is attached to human pathology, and what altered states will
emerge as technology relentlessly advances. That is a call we should answer.
Telephone
Through
June 15, produced by Theater Ninjas at the Ohio City Masonic Temple, 2831
Franklin, make reservations at: http://telephone.brownpapertickets.com/
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