Developed With and Performed By:
May Bernardo, Ian Bivins, Beth Brooks, Jay Hanson, Erik Hoover,
Kym Longhi and Michael A. Sward.
Video excepts edited by JPProductions
Seven strangers are invited to a mysterious event. Dressed for a party they find themselves in a place with no address, no host and -- no exits. Connected only by circumstance, this unlikely group of characters can only rely on their intuition as they navigate through a sea of relationships and unexpected happenings. In pursuit of answers they become mourners at a funeral, contestants at a marathon dance, jurors in a courtroom and players in a life-sized game of checkers.
In the end, do we ever find ourselves; or do we tend to lose ourselves in the moment? THE HUMAN SHOW is less of a story than an event. An event that unfolds as one might imagine life passing before ones eyes in a distant yet oddly familiar stream of consciousness.
STAR TRIBUNE
Published: March 21, 2005
Edition: METRO
THEATER REVIEW
THE HUMAN SHOW
A smart look at life at its most ordinary
By Graydon Royce
Staff Writer
In less skilled hands, "The Human Show" could become a self-indulgent acting exercise - cerebral and impenetrable. But in the hands, feet, legs, arms, faces and bodies of the Margolis-Brown Theater Company, this production blooms as a paradox of simplicity and complexity, rewarding us with a rich physical vocabulary and a spare verbal lexicon. In fact, terming this troupe merely "skilled" shortchanges what it has done in "The Human Show," playing now at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. Director Kari Margolis and seven performers ruthlessly strip their art of adornment and remodel it with fresh transparency.
Seven lost souls prepare for a social gathering to which they have been invited. The event is life and on a tabula rasa stage, these garish creatures engage in what might be described as an epic poem of the banal. Mundane statements ("I'll have a couple of drinks before I go;" "Am I overdressed?" "I'm going to get lucky tonight!") ring with clarity not because they are profound, but because they aptly crystallize the social patterns we drift through mindlessly every day. Accenting this ethos, Margolis works her cast (May Lane Bernardo, Ian Bivins, Beth Brooks, Jay Hanson, Erik Hoover, Kym Longhi, Michael A. Sward) through movement that we would consider stylized or exaggerated. She sees it as unfettered by convention - an act of primitive reality.
An aggressive and precisely timed kinesthetic dance emerges. Broad gestures, tiny tics, a ballet skirting the borders of gymnastics and professional wrestling all mesh in one cohesive style. The performers have given Margolis incredible material with which to work - on two occasions the tableau of seven people balanced in a rough pyramid on a folding chair brought spontaneous applause - and she assembles it with a disciplined eye.
It's funny and inventive, probing human nature. Like the thoughts of people who interpret unintended messages at a party. Perhaps that guy or gal looking your way is burning with passion. Or is it just fright over how creepy you look? Or maybe it's just a bad case of gas. Margolis and her troupe play with that inscrutability. People fighting over a chair symbolize the struggle for authority, the pride of achieving it and the scheming to overtake it. Isolation, desperation, alienation, impassivity, desire, pecking order, the tenacity of status holders, the bid for attention - they are all revealed here in tiny vignettes that invite our curiosity over what will come next.
And then there is Tony Brown's soundscape, a textured piece of original and standard tunes in diverse instrumentation. Insistent throughout each moment, it both drives and reacts to the action.
For those intrigued by the intersection of theatre dance, language and performer insight, "The Human Show" is much worth seeing.
theatre of mind, muscle and media
Make-Up Design
Conceived & Directed By:
Charles Craun
Kari Margolis
Lighting Design:
Set Design: Rick Paul
Soundscape: Tony Brown
Costumes: Kari Margolis
Kym Longhi