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Original Ensemble
KOPPELVISION was created in workshop with the performing artists.
Stephan Bienskie, Beth Brooks, Natalie Ferrier, Stephan Geras, Louise Heit, Stephen Kohrherr, Elizabeth Korabek, Deborah Marcus, Colleen McArdle, Joan Merwyn, Debra Roth, Kristi Schumacher, Carter Timmins, Robbie Walker, Kristin Stuart

Touring Ensemble 1993
Repertory Company Members:
Beth Brooks, Stephan Geras, Joan Merwyn.
with Risa Cohen, Gunnar Danielson, Andrea Dishy, Jennifer Marshall, Christi Minarovich, Michael Hazard Perry, Irene Siegel, Kristin Stuart and Ruth Tamir

KOPPELVISION & OTHER DIGITAL DEITIES

KOPPELVISION creates a world where medieval and modern images intermingle, and superstition runs amok. In this intriguing dreamscape humankind's search for a god turns up no answers; only questions from the man in the moon -- who strangely resembles Ted Koppel.

Star Tribune

By Mike Steele/ Staff Writer

SATURDAY/March 12/1994

The newest Twin Cities arts residents, Kari Margolis, Tony Brown and the Adaptor Company, are making their local debut this weekend and it's an auspicious one.

The Adaptors are certainly part of the postmodern mix - pulling from dance, theater and media, telling their non-linear, non-literal stories through images juxtaposed with snatches of dialogue - yet they're head and shoulders above run of local mill dance-theater.

Their images are powerful, clear and compellingly imaginative. Their use of dialogue is precise and (usually) ironic.

Their use of video projections is superb, focused, controlled, often haunting. Even going into dark corners, they have a bountiful wit and playfulness, sometimes almost childlike, that gets us beyond the sturm und drang, angst-laden drippings of the Generation X world.

I also liked that in their debut show, "Koppelvision and Other Digital Deities," they used an absorbing density of visuals to zero in on a relatively simple but important theme: that the father, the son and the holy ghost is found today in the iconography of techno-deities such as Ted Koppel, whose snappish, paternal, quietly quizzical voice soothingly leads us towards what seems to be a sound bite truth.

The Adaptors derive their power from laying opposites side by side, or turning one thing into an opposite thing.

The opening scene has a woman (who turns out to be a man) In a flashy mod red dress hanging from the ceiling as cranky crones dressed like so many Carrie Nations surround her seated on chairs, carrying poles which they bang on the floor in condemnation. Behind them sit three cowled medieval judges, Savonarolas filled with righteousness. Koppel's voice looms over it all intoning: "Such is the background of this eventful day," followed by Gregorian chants.

Within minutes, the pious begrudgers have ripped off their outer garments, grabbed electric shavers and gone into some orgiastic shaving ritual that turns from turn-on to menace. That leads into a scene on telephoning in which you can't tell who's talking to whom about what, though it could be ancient Greeks commenting on the day's events at Delphi.

Many of the images are classical, many of them biblical, some painterly and almost familiar, all of them broken by modern intrusions or contemporary vulgarities.

The most extraordinary image reveals human heads floating out of a fabric void sweeping upwards. The heads mutter and prate while Koppel's questioning voice asks "What happened to all those bodies?"

Other scenes show women in preRaphaelite hair yearning as three men walk through, finally coupling while the odd women out weep mournfully. There are Images of the plague, of the Messiah, even of a crucifixion surrounded by bloodied pietas. Giant eyeballs sparkle to eerie life.

Koppel's own image, mute but talking, is projected overhead until It becomes a rounded rose window, a stained glass icon that dominates the stage. Koppel as Christ, TV as the miracle mediating and interpreting experience and creating the modem world's reality.

It's all highly fragmented, like life, and doesn't give easy literalisms or interpretations; unlike TV it assumes an actively engaged audience interpreting for itself. It's a flow, a collage, an hour's worth of stimulating and provocative images that build into an accumulation of visual insights.

If there's an overall statement, it's that we should quit looking to the heavens (including the TV ether) for our deities.

The performing is powerful, carried out with absolute control and clarity by the 12-member troupe, certainly the most exciting and provocative addition to the Twin Cities arts landscape in some time.

theatre of mind, muscle and media

Multimedia

Conceived By:

Kari Margolis & Tony Brown

Brian Aldous

Directed by: Kari Margolis

Lighting Design:

Set Design: Kyle Chepulis

Soundscape: Tony Brown

Costumes: Kari Margolis

Tony Brown & Kari Margolis

Scenic Design: Rick Paul