cathy murphy, adam seelig, richard harte, jane miller and andrew moodie. photo: sai sivanesan
There is much to absorb in Talking Masks, a play written and directed by Adam Seelig, produced by One Little Goat Theatre and running at the Walmer Centre Theatre until November 28th, 2009. Seelig spends an hour contemplating the relationships between a son and his parents, delving into the myths of the Greek Oedipus and the Biblical Isaac and Ishmael (a story also told in the Torah and the Koran) and twisting the words, blending the myths, and layering a variety of imagery and ideas atop one another that force the audience to make their own connections, to stretch their minds and to reflect on variations of this theme, or run the risk of being bored and confused.
For the record, I liked this play. I thought that there was much to be admired in Seelig’s text and that his staging and the use of sound and lighting (designed by Christopher Stanton and Laird MacDonald respectively) were particularly striking and innovative. The play begins with a man, the son, tied to a tree on the uppermost section of a steeply inclining stage. He is, in many ways, the “Everyson,” but he represents both the condemned Oedipus and beloved Isaac. He speaks to a man sitting backward astride a wooden horse, who knows that the Son is fated to die, and interrogates and twists the Son’s words, saddling him with riddles and asserting his power and patriarchal role. In the second half of the play, the Son is given an introduction to the world by his two Mothers. He takes all he needs from them and then seeks to rebel and enter society on his own.
But with this play it isn’t at all about the narrative, which is artfully ambiguous and suggests the beginnings of mythical stories that the audience may be familiar with and themes of burgeoning sexuality, jealousy, abandonment, and destiny without ever committing to any one perspective or offering its own definitive vision of the texts. Talking Masks is primarily about language. This is apt, as One Little Goat Theatre Company is “the only theatre in North America devoted to a modern and contemporary poetic theatre.” Adam Seelig is doubtlessly a poet and that gives Talking Masks its own distinct tone. Here, the stories and the themes have to be drawn out of the words, out of their syllables, their resonance, and their rhyme. Throughout much of the play the actors engage in a sort of mixture between random word association and one word story. In this way, it is the words that propel us from one idea to the next. Begot becomes beget becomes besot and Y becomes why in the same way that U becomes you becomes W becomes double you, which harkens back to the relationship between Ishmael and Isaac, Isaac the second son, “wait just a second, son, wait just a second, son, wait just a second, son.” It is all word play, and it is all very clever.
There are moments of incredible power in the play, such as an overlapping battle between the two Mothers (an allusion to Sarah and Hagar) in which Cathy Murphy repeats, “AND YES” while Jane Miller asserts “BUT NO” which accelerates with striking use of recording media and microphones. The Mothers then teach the Son the alphabet in a very cleverly constructed scene in a shared monologue in which the most pronounced of their words follow the alphabet sequentially. I found this magical to watch. Cathy Murphy had a particularly intense orgasm moment in which the words “don’t stop” were repeated for an incredibly long time, which resonated strongly and suggested the doomed passion of Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother. The four performers, Cathy Murphy, Jane Miller, Andrew Moodie and Richard Harte each give fascinating performances because they are rooted more in words and ideas than they are in characters and narrative. Andrew Moodie is particularly skilled at changing the meaning of a word, and even sometimes creating new possibilities for words, simply in his intonation and articulation. Murphy and Miller have beautiful power in their ability to converge and then clash, suggesting both the complex relationship that develops between two women jointly raising a child, and the self-doubt and inner-conflict which plagues the human mind.
Talking Masks does not offer any powerful conclusions, and sometimes, especially in the First Act, it seems as though Seelig is offering only the initial shadows of many interesting ideas, without ever developing them beyond a suggestion. It is clear he is not interested in one definitive answer, but endless possibilities, for which it is left up to the audience to grasp at the straws they connect to most fervently and to choose their own connections. In the end, the audience is left without a clear sense of anything, but with a cluster of thoughts percolating in their brains and probably demanding from them further thought and commitment. You need to be in the right state of mind to enjoy this show, but, for the record, I felt that, to quote Frank N. Furter, sometimes “a mental mind-fuck can be nice.”
For the record, I liked this play. I thought that there was much to be admired in Seelig’s text and that his staging and the use of sound and lighting (designed by Christopher Stanton and Laird MacDonald respectively) were particularly striking and innovative. The play begins with a man, the son, tied to a tree on the uppermost section of a steeply inclining stage. He is, in many ways, the “Everyson,” but he represents both the condemned Oedipus and beloved Isaac. He speaks to a man sitting backward astride a wooden horse, who knows that the Son is fated to die, and interrogates and twists the Son’s words, saddling him with riddles and asserting his power and patriarchal role. In the second half of the play, the Son is given an introduction to the world by his two Mothers. He takes all he needs from them and then seeks to rebel and enter society on his own.
But with this play it isn’t at all about the narrative, which is artfully ambiguous and suggests the beginnings of mythical stories that the audience may be familiar with and themes of burgeoning sexuality, jealousy, abandonment, and destiny without ever committing to any one perspective or offering its own definitive vision of the texts. Talking Masks is primarily about language. This is apt, as One Little Goat Theatre Company is “the only theatre in North America devoted to a modern and contemporary poetic theatre.” Adam Seelig is doubtlessly a poet and that gives Talking Masks its own distinct tone. Here, the stories and the themes have to be drawn out of the words, out of their syllables, their resonance, and their rhyme. Throughout much of the play the actors engage in a sort of mixture between random word association and one word story. In this way, it is the words that propel us from one idea to the next. Begot becomes beget becomes besot and Y becomes why in the same way that U becomes you becomes W becomes double you, which harkens back to the relationship between Ishmael and Isaac, Isaac the second son, “wait just a second, son, wait just a second, son, wait just a second, son.” It is all word play, and it is all very clever.
There are moments of incredible power in the play, such as an overlapping battle between the two Mothers (an allusion to Sarah and Hagar) in which Cathy Murphy repeats, “AND YES” while Jane Miller asserts “BUT NO” which accelerates with striking use of recording media and microphones. The Mothers then teach the Son the alphabet in a very cleverly constructed scene in a shared monologue in which the most pronounced of their words follow the alphabet sequentially. I found this magical to watch. Cathy Murphy had a particularly intense orgasm moment in which the words “don’t stop” were repeated for an incredibly long time, which resonated strongly and suggested the doomed passion of Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother. The four performers, Cathy Murphy, Jane Miller, Andrew Moodie and Richard Harte each give fascinating performances because they are rooted more in words and ideas than they are in characters and narrative. Andrew Moodie is particularly skilled at changing the meaning of a word, and even sometimes creating new possibilities for words, simply in his intonation and articulation. Murphy and Miller have beautiful power in their ability to converge and then clash, suggesting both the complex relationship that develops between two women jointly raising a child, and the self-doubt and inner-conflict which plagues the human mind.
Talking Masks does not offer any powerful conclusions, and sometimes, especially in the First Act, it seems as though Seelig is offering only the initial shadows of many interesting ideas, without ever developing them beyond a suggestion. It is clear he is not interested in one definitive answer, but endless possibilities, for which it is left up to the audience to grasp at the straws they connect to most fervently and to choose their own connections. In the end, the audience is left without a clear sense of anything, but with a cluster of thoughts percolating in their brains and probably demanding from them further thought and commitment. You need to be in the right state of mind to enjoy this show, but, for the record, I felt that, to quote Frank N. Furter, sometimes “a mental mind-fuck can be nice.”
Talking Masks plays at the Walmer Centre Theatre (188 Lowther Avenue) until November 28th, 2009. For more information call 416.915.0201 or visit www.onelittlegoat.org
