Sunday evening

Another night, another soaking, and this one in just one block.  Missed the debate, somehow I thought it was tomorrow night.  At any rate, was attending a performance about magic mushrooms at On the Boards.  I got on a volunteer list last year, and so get to see shows in exchange for taking tickets or watching the door.  So, I signed up.  Didn't think I was all that interested, in that I don't do drugs, but in general, I like seeing the performances at On the Boards because of the mix of artistic disciplines.

Have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to love this show.  Probably my favorite performance of the year, so far.  Everything worked:  story-telling, movement, costume, embodiment, sound, lighting...it was everything I want in a performance.  I was also surprised to find tears running down my face at one point, and I think the woman next to me might also have been crying.  I couldn't tell you why or even where (though, in the first half); he's just a good story teller (Alan Sutherland, Little Brown Mushrooms.)  (And Douglas Ridings as the chicken...nailed the movement and behavior, without being a cartoon, he was a chicken.  Not actually sure why there was a chicken, but I liked it.)

The performance begins with talk about space, about Sputnik.  And then about building a spaceship to travel to other worlds.  So a rocket ship is built on the side of the stage, and then the two dancers lure the chicken to it, and I suppose I thought they were just gonna send it off alone, but they loaded themselves into it as well.  It had to do with the idea of what would you take with you?  And a pet seemed like a good idea, and a pet chicken, even better, as they also lay eggs.  He later goes into the life-cycle of the mushrooms, and how they have evolved to grow around humans, their preferred growing medium being something produced by humans.

I was talking to someone about Paradisical Rites (St. Genet, 2013) before this show, Sutherland was buried on stage through the first two acts of that, and he referenced that at the beginning of the show tonight, saying that no one would be buried alive, or beaten, or made to bleed in this show (there was nothing violent about it at all.  There were children in the audience.)  The person I was talking to also mentioned that I should compare Ridings performance in that show, with his chicken in this one, and see what I think of his range.  I think all the performers are fully committed to what they are doing.

(I also mentioned that as much as I hated that show, due to things it brought up for me, things I carried into it, it stayed with me, and made me dig deeper, and that I think art should do that (though perhaps not always so violently so.)  He (the man I was talking to) said he thought about it for weeks after, as well.  He also mentioned that things such as drug abuse and assault shouldn't be glossed over, but should be violent and painful to watch, because that's closer to reality.  Perhaps we gloss it over (tv, movies, etc) because we are (rightfully, perhaps) frightened to face it head on, we'd rather it didn't exist, or at least not in the sphere where we live.  But it does, (I come across used needles on a daily basis now), and yet if it's invisible, we don't have to do anything to make it better.  If we have to look at it, maybe we will work toward real solutions, maybe we'll see someone we love, or someone like us.  There are a lot of traumatized people out in the world, the path we're on isn't really working, a series of bandaids, to push it down the line for someone else to solve.)