MR. INBETWEEN
Mr. Inbetween always seems about to collapse. Performers constantly bump into each other in this playful, mysterious, charming dance-theater piece, running in and out of doors for no apparent reason and never quite seeming to know what is supposed to happen next. Chaos always threatens, but Timothy Buckley, the piece’s creator, and the Buster King Dance Club keep this chaos volatile and yet skillfully under control.
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Presumably Mr. Inbetween is Buckley himself, a rather timid and wholly plain man who clings to a book full of pictures of black-and-white-geometrical patterns. He also lives in a world divided between black and white–his chair, for example, is made up of one half of a white wooden chair joined to half of another, entirely different black wooden chair. Clearly, however, Mr. Inbetween knows–or wants to know–more than this world: he wears a red shirt, blue pants, and yellow socks beneath his long, untucked black-and-white- striped shirt. His desire to know more is theatricalized by the presence of four doors onstage–doors through which other black-and-white-clad figures can pass but that remain stubbornly locked to him.
This kind of ironic metatheatricality gives Mr. Inbetween much of its strength. The performers often appear to be “bad actors,” saying simple lines flatly, looking stupid and self- conscious. Yet it takes great actors to pull this off convincingly, especially considering that their “flat” lines–mostly having to do with making sure another person is OK–cannot disguise the urgent tenderness these characters long to feel for one another. Another example of this kind of ironic twist is a riduculous, “menacing” black blob that appears once or twice, presumably the embodiment of death or fear or some other unpleasantness. The blob is clearly just a dancer, however–sometimes two–writhing around under black stretchy fabric. It is hysterically funny to watch it bump around the stage, frantically extending parts of itself in all directions, as if starved for attention, for someone to scare. Yet when this same blob makes its final frightening entrance, attacking and smothering Mr. Inbetween with nearly maniacal energy, it has truly captured the terrifying qualities so lampooned in its previous scenes.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Paul Boscher.
