LEE BREUER’S CLASSIC COMICS

Gerald Rabkin

Mabou Mines Dollhouse, adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and directed by Lee Breuer, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, NY, November 8–December 21, 2003.

hirty-four years and counting Warrilow was mesmerizing as the narra- . . . Lee Breuer is still at it. His tor of The Lost Ones, a vision of purga- T two latest pieces—Ecco Porco tory as a “flattened cylinder fifty meters (2002) and Dollhouse (2003)—with the round and eighteen high” into which experimental theatre collective, Mabou are crammed two hundred “lost bodies,” Mines, of which he is a founding mem- each searching restlessly for its mate; ber—continue the categories of work moving about the cylinder’s center, wait- which established the group’s reputa- ing their turn to futilely climb ladders tion in the early 70s: imaginatively pre- to take them to one of the niches or cise, innovative stagings of the plays and tunnels that honeycomb the cylinder’s fiction of (an author to walls. The performance was matched by whom the group has remained commit- the piece’s innovative visual brilliance, ted through the years) and unconven- set by Breuer in a claustrophobic cu- tional choral theatre pieces based on bicle padded with gray foam rubber poetic texts by Breuer, labeled Anima- (literally a padded cell). The audience tions. Originally performed in art galler- peered down at Warrilow’s emaciated ies and museums, the group moved presence as he slowly unveiled a small beyond an art milieu into a theatre sculptural representation of the cylinder context when Presents he described, complete with a group of Samuel Beckett, directed by Breuer, miniature toy bodies. With delicate pre- opened at the Theatre for the New City, cision, Warrilow used a pair of forceps , in the spring of 1975. to position these homunculi in the grooves and niches of the cylindrical That program consisted of two short model. Each member of the audience plays, Play and Come and Go, and an was given a pair of binoculars with adapted prose fragment, The Lost Ones, which to observe the proceedings in distinguished by the modulated power voyeuristic closeup. Beckett’s molecular of its acting and visualization. David purgatory was further evoked by en-

40 ᭿ PAJ 77 (2004), pp. 40–46. © 2004 Gerald Rabkin

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 semble-member ’s tape- deconstructive critics “misread” literary recorded music, which (as one critic texts: if the ground text—classic or wrote) “seems to be played by electrons contemporary—can no longer reveal an rather than instruments.” unequivocal meaning, the director can recuperate its many voices only through The production audacity of the Beckett the intervention of performance. pieces was also evident in Breuer and Mabou Mines’ concurrent work, the As long as Breuer’s theatre focused on Animations. The Animations’ dependence his own texts or the works of Beckett on a non-narrative visual art vocabulary (perhaps the quintessential contempo- obscured their roots in Breuer’s poetic rary artist) it could be ignored by those imagination. At heart, each piece was unreceptive to new experimentation. But an intensely personal poem, a beast epic when he moved outside of Mabou Mines centered on an animal as protagonist. to accept commissions by the New York Horse, beaver, dog served as dominant Shakespeare Festival, the American Rep- images to illuminate the burdens of the ertory Theatre, and the Brooklyn Acad- contemporary consciousness assaulted emy of Music to direct new productions by an overload of images and social of established classics in established mi- roles. In order to fully realize his poetic lieus, Breuer’s aesthetic was not changed vision, Breuer the poet recognized that by its new classical focus. He remained language—however fragmented and el- committed to the values and strategies liptical—was not enough. He learned revealed in his Mabou Mines work: if from the world of ensemble theatre that all texts are distorted by conflicting the group’s collective consciousness signals, performance reinterpretation is can—must—enhance the literary text. absolutely necessary to recuperate them. He learned from the worlds of art and For Breuer this meant that a new dialec- film that visual imagery carries its own tic had to be forged between the classic signification. He learned from the world text, overlayed by the sedimentations of of music the power of pure, non-pro- history, and contemporary performance grammatic sound. And so Breuer the styles, a conjunction dangerous and in- radical director emerged as the double evitably controversial because it involved of Breuer the poet. For his total vision directorial risk-taking. was and remains dialectical, a synthesis of opposites and oppositions. But if the record of his classic reinter- pretations inevitably reveals uneven es- Without conscious intellectual indebt- thetic success, there are more triumphs edness, Breuer accepted the then ascen- than failures. In his initial extra-Mabou dant theories of literary deconstruction, classical excursions for Robert Brustein’s particularly Roland Barthes’s premise in ART in 1980 and Joe Papp’s Shake- S/Z that “the work of the commentary speare festival in 1981, although the [for which we can read ‘production’], range of his audacity was apparent, his once it is separated from any ideology directorial touch remained unsure. In of totality, consists precisely in manhan- turning to the Lulu plays and The Tem- dling the text, interrupting it.” So in his pest, Breuer chose popular forms as the Animations Breuer “manhandles” his own principal vehicles for textual recupera- texts, for the very same reasons that tion. In his and translator Michael

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 Feingold’s conflation of Earth Spirit and the Delacorte the summer of 1981, Pandora’s Box, Wedekind was translated however, the outrage was much more into an American context—Lulu in widespread. This Tempest was textually Hollywood, New York, and Las Vegas; faithful but even more radical in pro- Wilhelmine repression, corruption, pre- duction: aggressively contemporary (it tension—a vision of a society without was set, “this evening,” the program scruple—was naturalized. The social told us, in “an island in Central Park”), parallels were underlined as language it dressed Shakespeare’s characters in switched in and out of historical time. pop or anachronistic clothing: Caliban Germanic names were Americanized and in ragged jeans, open denim vest and updated, occupations altered to con- shades; Ferdinand in white vinyl jump- form with the dominant milieu of the suit; a Mafia group of Antonio, Sebastian LA media industry. and Gonzalo, with Alonso as godfather, in Palm Beach suits and big-brimmed And most radical of all was Breuer’s fedoras, accompanied by pistol-packing overall production metaphor: Lulu was guards. There were also a female Trinculo presented as a film being dubbed by and a Stephano modelled on Mae West actors in a postsynch studio. Actors and W.C. Fields respectively, and, most delivered their lines on microphone; outrageously, eleven Ariels played by taped sound effects accompanied mimed everybody from a Sumo wrestler to actions. The various scenes were en- small children. The performers—though acted in tacky, portable B-movie sets of not relinquishing Shakespeare’s text— a photographer’s studio, a swimming spoke in a variety of accents ranging pool in Rio, a gothic mansion, etc. The from punk cockney to Mafia guttural to structure and apparatus of the synch Harlem street jive—to the accompani- studio catwalks, sound effect booths, ment of samba and gamelan music. and lighting instruments framed the minimal sets. The “film within a play” Even Breuer admits that he went too aimed at a conscious Brechtian distanc- far, that he “owes another ing from the primary realm of action shot.” But the piece revealed the con- which was the Lulu Show itself, a kalei- stant in Breuer’s work: his denial of the doscope of performance “numbers” il- aesthetic antitheses high/low and seri- lustrating the Rise and Fall of the mythic ousness/entertainment, his recognition Sex Queen. that the forms and conventions of popu- lar and folk art are, at their best, as Although many ART subscribers were artistically valid as high art statements. outraged by Breuer’s innovations, and Indeed, they project a vitality that high although he himself now views the pro- art rarely duplicates. Breuer’s muse de- duction as “a little too Hasty Pudding,” scends when the top is down and the Lulu earned much critical acceptance as radio is on. It was no accident that the a radical interpretation that illuminated Animations evoked the denigrated art of its text. But, then, Wedekind’s plays the comic strip. though written at the end of the nine- teenth century are very contemporary By far, his most successful recuperation in sensibility. When Breuer turned his of a classic text, in almost universal innovative techniques on The Tempest at estimation, was his gospel resetting of

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 Sophocles’ last tragedy, Oedipus at accents. Lear—played by the indomin- Colonus (1983 BAM, 1988 Broadway). able —emerges as a Breuer and composer had strong-willed, mean-spirited blue-collar the ambition to reconnect with the matriarch. Gloucester (Isabel Monk) is high, if recalcitrant, art of tragedy by a rural black woman hosting a house- affirming its religious roots through the hold of dogs, not knights. The Fool is living musical heritage of the black played by a transvestite with a candy- sacred tradition. Building upon earlier cane phallus around his neck, and work with genuine doo-wop singers in Oswald is a West Indian prostitute in Sister Suzie Cinema, the collaborators hot pants. Names are inverted (Cordelia embraced the black gospel tradition by becomes Cordelion), clan battles be- using genuine gospel performers, bamely, come gang wars, and courts and heath the Blind Boys of Alabama. The Gospel are transposed into backyard barbeques, at Colonus casts Sophocles’ valedictory country roads—even a deserted putt drama (the Greek tragedy closest to the range and a trash dump on the outskirts Christian resurrection myth) within the of town. form of a pentecostal church service, complete with preacher and congregants’ If, at first glance, the production seemed hymns, prayers, sermons, and benedic- a provocative stunt, it soon became tions. Perhaps for the first time, an clear that there was at root a serious incarnation of Oedipus is really blind. theme: to reveal the corrosive effect of (In Asian theatre tradition, the “charac- patriarchal power by reversing gender ter” is divided between actor Morgan roles. When Lear gives up the deeds to Freeman and singer Clarence Foun- her house and loses the right to drive tain.) The Gospel, in Breuer’s phrase, her own car (a ’57 Chevy), the vulner- had “white eyes and black ears.” De- abilities of powerlessness are natural- spite simplification and conflation of ized. And power itself does more than episodes and odes, and adaptation of corrupt those who wield it: it erodes, it Robert Fitzgerald’s translation into senilisizes. With the guide of his peren- meters receptive to gospel music, The nial dialectic, Breuer translates these Gospel at Colonus was essentially deeply themes into a dominant metaphor. As faithful to Sophoclean tragedy, even as he explained in a 1988 Village Voice its spirit was given infectious contem- interview: porary resonance. You take a formal element and Of Breuer’s later classic “recuperations,” reengage it by an analogy to it should be noted that the radical something the audience recog- inversions at the heart of his production nizes; they can understand what of Lear (back with Mabou Mines, 1988) is going down in this play prob- anticipated the radical physical reversals ably better than they could of the recent Dollhouse. Exit the King in through a traditional produc- King Lear: Breuer transposes the great tion. The idea of analogy is not tragedy to 1950s Georgia, most auda- to reduce the entire play to ciously reverses the characters’ genders symbols where anything can and racial backgrounds, evoking a To- be anything, but to make one bacco Road mileu replete with Southern or two choices—men equal

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 women, then equals now—and vice creates a drama of destiny and then fit all other things to- entrapment, in which Nora is conscious gether with absolute accuracy. from the outset of her frustration and her longing to break out of the pattern For “accuracy” read “consistency.” The of roles and masks and games in which radical inversion at the heart of this she finds herself confined.” Bergman production also characterizes the meth- stripped away the realistic superstruc- odology of Breuer’s latest engagement ture to transcend the play’s historical with the classics: Dollhouse (a title more reality and to bridge past and present. faithful to the original Norwegian— Nora’s milieu was not evoked by heavy Dukkehjem—than the traditional A three-dimensional Victorian decor and Doll’s House). Ibsens’s great drama—as set-pieces, but by enlarged projections we all know—initiates the modern of vintage period photographs. The drama. Nora’s slamming of her house- power of the last scene of truth-telling hold door in 1879 opened another door was enhanced by moving it to the bed- to dramatic revolution. Perhaps no more room, with Torvald naked in bed, futilely play of the classic modern theatre is so pleading against his wife’s desertion. consistently revived because of its con- And to underline the price of liberation, tinued thematic relevance and its offer- Bergman offers us the final image of ing of a great central role. Despite some Nora’s little daughter Hilde standing creaky remnants of the pièce bien faite, unnoticed in the backgound as her the play explodes into modernity as it mother makes her drastic escape. establishes Naturalism as the then pro- gressive dramatic form. Most revivals I do not know if Breuer saw Bergman’s accept Ibsen’s formal dramatic decision, remarkable production, but his recent present an illusionistic simulation of Dollhouse aims for similar radical recu- Victorian domesticity, and stand or fall peration. Accepting the continued rele- on our sympatheic acceptance of a pas- vance of the play’s theme—which was sionate, realistic, three-dimensional per- never merely feministic (“I’m not quite formance of Nora. Rarely do revivals of sure what women’s rights really are; to the play employ what we would con- me it’s a question of human rights,” sider radical production strategies. Ibsen replied to praise from the Norwe- gian Society for Women’s Rights)— One exception proves the rule: in the Breuer aims “to make a political state- 1980s Ingmar Bergman directed a reno- ment without haranging politics from vative Dollhouse (which played BAM, in the stage.” As in Lear, the main strategy 1991). Instead of the traditional middle- is an audacious physical metaphor: all class drawing room, Bergman offered us the male characters are played by actors a sparsely furnished platform (an island under four and a half feet tall; the in a theatrical void) around which sat actresses range from five to six feet. As all the actors, as silent, shadow pres- Breuer explained in a Village Voice inter- ences waiting for their cues to step view: “Patriarchy is in reality three feet upon it to play their parts in Nora’s tall, but has a voice that will dominate drama of emancipation. As a contem- six-foot women. Male power isn’t de- porary critic remarked: “This visual de- pendent on physical size.” To further

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 underscore the physical discrepancy the and “snippets of The Vikings of Helga- actors move on a set furnished with land,” as the program notes), com- miniature tables and chairs, even tiny pletely faithful in structure to Ibsen— cups and saucers. Nora and her friend the performance consciously exploits an Kristine crawl through a small door to array of nineteenth-century theatrical make their entrances onto a miniaturiaed genres ranging from melodrama to op- setting the little men occupy comfort- era and ballet to Punch and Judy show, ably. appropriately accompanied by a pianist playing variations on the work of Grieg. The visual metaphor is so extreme as to appear initially simplistically parodic, The actors often gesticulate broadly in evoking the laughter of ridicule. Point keeping with the style of melodrama. made; where do you go from here? But, Maude Mitchell’s lanky Nora, in par- as with the reversals of gender in Lear, ticular, ranges far beyond realism with and the aesthetics of his theatrical dia- her faux-Scandinavian accent, her artifi- lectic in general, Breuer does not place cially high nasality, and her mincing all his strategic eggs in one metaphoric movements: a great big beautiful doll. basket. It soon becomes apparent that But it soon becomes clear that these size is merely one layer in a multi- exaggerations merely enlarge the truth layered construction, or, shall we say, that Nora herself is her society and her deconstruction? Breuer plays a more husband’s artificial plaything, the tradi- complicated game as he uncovers in his tional songbird in the gilded cage, a interpretation an arsenal of oppostions: truth Ms. Mitchell finally conveys as between comedy and tragedy, between her Nora gains autonomy. Breuer is not realism and stylization, between nine- afraid to allow her often to express teenth-century and contemporary the- psychological truth comically (hence the atre styles. First of all, the setting (de- parodic accent), for comedy, in his view, sign by Narelle Sissons): the theatre is is not incompatible with truthfulness. literally created before us in the cavern- And this truthfulness becomes more ous space of St. Ann’s Warehouse in insistent as the drama plays itself out. Brooklyn’s DUMBO district—an act of self-conscious postmodernism. At the The little men representing Torvald, piece’s opening, red velvet curtains rise Dr. Rank, and Krogstadt (who often are to frame the playing area. Flats in beige genuinely funny because of the fact of and blue are brought into the newly their realistic physical inappropriateness) constructed proscenium by stagehands work strenuously to create believable as is the dimunitive furniture. We have, characters even as their diminutiveness in short, an outsized, cartoonlike styl- is foregrounded. And they succeed ad- ization of a dollhouse sitting warily in mirably in forcing us beyond the bound- the outlines of a nineteenth-century ary of conventional expectation to see theatre, a scenography increasingly ap- and experience the pain, the rage, the propriate to the drama that is about to passion, the regret in each of their be enacted. For as that drama pro- characters: the anguish of Ricardo Gil’s ceeds—largely faithful in text (with some Rank as he confesses his love for Nora is emendations, conflations, extrapolations, emotionally searing, and Mark Pove-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/152028104323048232 by guest on 25 September 2021 nelli’s Torvald convincingly traverses the of liberation. Breuer has always taken transition from smug, self-satified pater- puppets seriously; they have figured familias to humbled, contrite, uncom- prominently in his work from The Shaggy prehending rejectee. Small men, giant Dog Animation (1978) onward to The emotions. Warrior Ant (1988) and Peter and Wendy (1997, in which one performer, Karen I have noted Bergman’s theatrical high- Kandel, played Wendy and the Darlings lighting of the play’s great final emanci- with all the other characters represented pation scene by physically severing it by puppets). from the play’s last act. Breuer offers his own provocation: he shifts the mode of Dollhouse’s operatic coda, with its pup- aesthetic presentation from drama to pet surrogates witnessing and hearing opera and puppet show. As Nora finally their own last duet, aims to evoke opera’s confronts her husband with the truth expressive grandiloqence, an emotional about their false marriage, the set opens climax for which words alone are inad- up to reveal eighteen miniature stage equate. The piece brilliantly reveals boxes, each containing a pair of puppets Breuer’s postmodern conflation of the (by Jane Catherine Shaw) of Nora and past to comment on the present. In- Torvald in evening dress, collectively deed, it ends, not with Torvald’s bewil- representing an audience of operagoers. derment but with the image of the For the play has indeed segued into future, his and Nora’s daughter, taking opera as the protagonists break into up her brother’s toy sword as she repeats song; Nora’s declaration of indepen- her mother’s departing words: an indel- dence finds its voice as a soprano’s aria ible finale to a revelatory interpretation.

GERALD RABKIN is an editor of the recent play anthology Types of Drama and a long-time contributor to PAJ.

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