NORTH OF THE LAKE . . . ON THE SEVENTH DAY
North of the Lake . . . on the Seventh Day is unlike anything I’ve seen or even imagined in performance, yet it is built out of wholly recognizable elements. Doorika has even designed its own theater space: the World Tattoo Gallery, an enormous empty loft in the South Loop. At one end of the room, two long orange curtains are hung on either side of several dozen chairs. The chairs face an old velvet curtain, behind which can be seen an illuminated painting of a blue sky. This installation is stunningly beautiful, with its rich colors in a room seemingly devoid of color. Walking into the gallery is like falling into a frame from a Technicolor film.
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Looking over our shoulders we can see the dancer (Brian Evans) slowly making his way toward us; he’s finally revealed to be a sturdy black man in a colorful robe, performing what seems to be a kind of tribal dance. Once he arrives in front of us–where he “belongs”–lights come up to reveal a floor that’s been whitewashed and spackled with multicolored paint. This “set” is hyperfake, with its obviously painted floor and unnaturally orange curtains. Spackling is normally used to add “texture” to theatrical designs, but it’s supposed to disappear. Here the spackling is so obvious that it’s entirely nonfunctional. The dancer looks pointedly out of place, as if on display. Clearly he does not belong here but in the shadows.
The show is constructed out of traditional dramatic scenes, though there’s no remnant of a plot. The scenes never have beginnings or ends; they seem instead to be caught glimpses. Constructed like the characters, these scenes have been distilled to images. For example, a woman hurriedly traverses the stage, desperately urging a man behind her to pack everything up. But the man, with a blank expression on his face, pokes along, dragging behind him a little red wagon. That’s the whole scene, and it shows a particular emotional state grounded in a slightly twisted reality. It is clear and yet endlessly ambiguous. It’s as if every gesture remains entirely in the realm of metaphor.
All these men simply ride the tide of history in all of its cruelty. The women, on the other hand, seem determined to fight against it. Mums lives in a constant state of nostalgia. History has rendered her useless, and only the glory of her youth–her own distorted history–gives her any comfort. Her daughter Iris (Debbie Shirley), on the other hand, is a radical activist, leading a revolution against an unnamed authoritarian power. Her heroism seems somehow doomed to failure, sadly laughable, as if the suave southern men in the rest of the piece could reduce her revolution to a charming parlor game.
All of the performers–the cast also includes Dooley, Robbie Hungerford, and Kelly Anchors–are entirely at home in this work. Each clearly understands the piece and how he or she fits into it. This is a remarkable achievement considering the new ground these artists are breaking. North of the Lake takes on an enormous agenda–both formally and thematically–and makes it accessible in all of its intricacies. It’s a confident production, one that speaks clearly and intelligently, though in a language we’ve never heard before. Yet somehow the language is familiar. It’s as if this kind of theater has been waiting for someone to discover it, in order that we might see a little farther.
