WHERE THE PEOPLE HAVE NO EYES
A member of the Jeff Committee was troubled about Where the People Have No Eyes. “Do we nourish the beast?” she asked. “Or punish the rest?”
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Turner claims to trace American society through the archetypal characters of Mother, Father, Son and Daughter. The Festival of Light he tells, us,is about “the battle between disillusionment in the present social order versus inherent knowledge, hidden meanings, and the ever present call that somehow there can be life in grace.” I have no idea what that means, and Turner’s treatise is filled with similar stuff.
Turner clearly feels that he has written a Work of Art, and brings the point home by employing ritualistic movement, a black-clad Greek chorus of one, and bursts of violence sometimes punctuated with sex. In fact sex and violence are key elements of Turner’s trilogy, which could be subtitled Testosterone on Parade (the subjugation of women is another primary element). Turner may feel that the play’s ritual and hackneyed verse justify the rash, often disgusting, and sometimes dangerous displays of manliness: the gentleman sitting next to me was nearly hit with a flying garbage can, which he stopped just in time with his foot. but the violence still comes off as the acting out of an angry, nasty, albeit intelligent young man.
Turner’s direction has definitely enhanced the text. The extremely long blackouts are punctuated by various primitive noises, a technique he also used in Enemies of the Moon. but the noises have progressed from random crashes and screams to sophisticated drumming and strange, evocative breathing. and though before it seemed that Turner was using this maneuver simply to frighten the audience, now the noises seem deliberate and specific–each sets the tone of the next scene.
Named as one of the Best of the Fest at Bailiwick Repertory’s director’s festival, The Dimmed Heart is a brief, sweet, charming piece about a young woman’s rude awakening to the world’s dishonesty, and the result of her loss of trust. Full of diverse references, to the likes of Lou Reed and Emily Dickinson, it is punctuated with live music by a guitar player, a violinist, and a drummer, and incorporates dance and acrobatics.
