Avant-garde theatre is often difficult to review because its non-linear esotericism isn’t intended to be absorbed through traditional means. It’s often not even meant to be understood, but rather provoke and/or shock. A-Z Productions’ Down in the Face of God immediately blurs the lines of reality before curtain. A slumbering bum and a young woman milling aimlessly about like a disturbed apparition are preset along with empty beer bottles and other random props. With no standard voice-over greeting warning the house to turn off their cell phones and unwrap those candies, additional actors sullenly descend upon the stage during a funeral rite; another arrives later like a tardy audience member. We are aimlessly guided along a Biblical week on the shore of the Mississippi River, near the southern tip of Illinois. The small Egyptian-named village of Thebes has a rich history with Abraham Lincoln having practiced law there as well as the rumor that the town’s jail once housed Dred Scott. These incredible facts are irrelevant, however, as the production keeps the audiences at an arm’s length while ruminating over the Mississippi's murky waters.
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| D (Eric Martig) observes May (Sam Bianchini, right) chastising the rebellious Anna (Meredith Wheeler, center) |
A sinewy drifter D (played with a nicely modulated charisma by Eric Martig), with past connections to the town, arrives like an earnest version of Maryanne Forrester from True Blood (Michelle Forbes in Season 2). He’s a stranger bearing gifts of booze, hope, and some small scale Sodom and Gomorrah. Pitted opposite against him is the virtuous Pen, who seeks a higher truth. Innocent and impressionable, he declares, “I believe in justice, I believe in the river.” He desires to do what is right, but is weak and corruptible “to the whims of men.”
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| D (Eric Martig) and Anna (Meredith Walker) kissing |
The cast quite frequently engages in a mass full-body prayer that turns cultish almost immediately. Their characters are preparing for a mysterious curse that robs their young. The present day Thebian residents look like Dust Bowl dwellers, even thought they’re constantly drenched by the rain pouring down on the dystopian town. Clothes are soaked from the downfall, wetness uncomfortably drips like snot from the nose of one actor, and the main subject of conversation is the impending flood. The spiritual conduit Ora often wakes from her somnambulist pensiveness to full-on possession--a spotlight on her suddenly arched back, head sticking up to the heavens. Static noise will emerge and the sound effects will supplement her voice like Mercedes McCambridge inhabiting Linda Blair in The Exorcist. The film-like effect is well produced, and not the audial assault that banging a hammer and metal pails can have within the black box acoustics.
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| Sam Bianchini, Meredith Wheeler, Dan Amerman, Eric Martig, Lauren Terilli, Christina Jun, Matt Harbert |
Earth versus water is a frequently visited abstract theme of the play. Dirt and dryness represent a false purity, as water is apocalyptic and redemptive. Mud, of course, becomes the brownish-gray area that strikes fear in the hearts of the Thebians. Garbage and stray materials empty into the decrepit dock this clan calls home. The thrust and house together force the rectangular black box into a diagonal focus. Set designer Tristan Jeffers tacks up old boards and a canvas backdrop minimally depicting the railway Thebes Bridge to accent objects like a swing and door hanging mid-air at the forefront encapsulating an ensuing doom. In another break of the fourth wall, the evocative mise-en-scène spills out onto the cracked Western Avenue sidewalks of Koreatown outside Studio/Stage, which many transients call home on any given day.
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| Cutie Dan Amerman plays Pen |
The cast fully commits to the gloomy script, slathering themselves in wine-soaked mud, simulating muscide (My own made-up euphemism for rodent murder), as well as heterosex. A pretty hot homoerotic moment awkwardly stops short, with a twist ending that blindly touches on the continuation of the species in this land that science and technology have forgotten. This is a society that has been reset to the stone-age. Their existence is primal (sex, birth, death, etc.) tied up in man-made religious edict. The ritualism of Face of God comes full circle, as the play starts and ends with a canvas body bag. At one point, spirit woman Ora convinces a mortal to, “Fuck the Gods.” Another declares, “I hate this place.” Indeed, I would too. The relentlessly serious tone of the abstruse production is either something you have to see more than once or just skip out on altogether. But, either way, you’re SOL, as the production closed on Saturday, June 2nd.
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