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Volume 3, Issue 10
May 10 - May 23, 2001
Acting Up
Cilicia Yakhlef
THROUGH THE
MONITOR
@
ALICE
The LIDA Project
2180 Stout Street
F-Sa 8p through June 2
$14-$16
303-282-0466
In an old, cold warehouse at the corner of 22nd and Stout, florescent
camp-lamps collide with techno-droid music and pseudo-Victorian values of color
and light. Creativity deconstructed is cut
loose like body parts and dumped into
buckets of something on the web, then
placed into choreographed piles that
scoot around stage or stand still or mum-ble
incomprehensibilities about Alice.
Experimental theater defined is, well,
indefinable. The LIDA Project has chris-tened
its new theater with an experimen-tal
collaboration formed loosely around
the Alice In Wonderland stories and
Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice
Liddell.
The piece explores the parallels between
the frenzy of fantasy in which our web-dependent
society has become immersed
and the spasms of surrealistic
adoration/ lust shared by Carroll and his
subject, Alice.
Although the characters from Carroll's
works are present on stage, they function
primarily as icons of ritual movement,
strolling from past to present, story book
to Internet chat room. The Red Queen,
Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, and Cheshire
Cat form a shifting tableau that serves as
a backdrop for the central action. The
central action is the struggle between two
hypotheses sharing the cerebral space of
the stage, sometimes finding voice in tandem,
sometimes overspeaking each other
in a battle for the audience's ear. The
Caterpillar, however, acts as tour guide
and omniscient narrator, walking the
audience through the maze of possibilities
generated within the script of Alice.
Perhaps what's best about this work,
though, is what lies behind the stageplay.
The work is truly experimental from concept
and collaborative design all the way
through to the manifestation of the experiment,
which appears apparition-like on
stage in the form of the play Alice. It all
began with LIDA's website and some
questions about technology posted for
exploration on the site. After several
months of discourse, responses were
investigated using Carroll's texts as the
looking glass with which to examine the
website dialogues.
Deconstruction of the Wonderland stories
was brought about by collaboration with
the actors, while extensive research by
the dramaturge leant referential nodes of
historical relevance to the effort. The
material was deposited on the Internet
and disseminated by the group. The
script was written online.
Colorado playwright Tami Canaday and
LIDA Project artistic director Brian
Freeland conceived the project and co-wrote
the play. Jeannene Bragg, a local
playwright and performance artist contributed
to the script and strolled the stage
as the Red Queen. Kryssi Wyckoff
Martin, founder of Genoa's Mother
Presents, served as dramaturge for the
piece. The notoriety of the names that
grace the program should be enough to
fill the theatre. There is an immense
amount of talent behind this script, and it
certainly shows.
However, it is the integrity brought to stage
by the cast and crew which keeps the work
pure. The cast gives a collectively haunting
performance, minimizing the characters
and the dialogue with precision and
artistry. Direction focuses on elusive visual
and vocal tableaus with action insets reminiscent
of Cirque du Soleil. The perform-ance
is not without its stars though.
Nils Kiehn, who won acclaim for his role
as Lucifer in Lucifer Tonight, has been with
the LIDA Project for five seasons. Both
mesmerizing and magnetic, Kiehn brings a
subsensory edge to his portrayal of
Tweedledum/ Tweedledee. He staggers
gracefully through movements that have
the pitch and meter of calliope music. The
character is at once tragic and comic,
grotesque and familiar. The nature of the
paradox that lies within
Tweedledum/ Tweedledee is, perhaps the
central theme of the play and it is illuminated
wonderfully on stage by the talents
of Nils Kiehn.
Kelly Wade as Alice also gives an outstanding
performance. The most 'human'
of all the characters on stage, Alice is in a
perpetual quandary, always subject to the
roles assigned to her and the directions of
the author. Wade manages to bring a subtle,
yet distinctly human sensuality to her
character which differentiates Alice from
every other player on the stage. She is the
subject with which the audience must
identify, and Wade is successful in her
endeavor to create that connection.
Experimental theater is not for everyone.
Those with finite parameters and mono-focal
artistic vision might do best to
check out a musical. If, however, you'd
like to pick up a show which will push
aside the theatrical boundaries imposed
by wannabe Broadway lackeys and other
unlikely experts, then I would strongly
recommend this play.
I'd also recommend you get familiar with
the LIDA Project's warehouse on the corner
of 22nd and Stout. LIDA has signed a
10-year lease and the space will be dedicated
to experimental theater performed
by local companies. It is a great endeavor
that will benefit greatly from the support
of Denver's theater community. Not to
mention the fact that the LIDA space is
across the alley from Denver's favorite
hipster hangout, the Mercury Cafe. Get to
know Alice. A
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