Conceived and Created by Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon
Signature Theatre on 42nd Street
Playing through August 8, 2021
The best thing about writing this review is writing a review. Like so many New York theatre addicts, the slow but deliberate reopening of our theatres is among the most treasured events in the opening up of our city – traditionally America’s theatre center. So, when one of my favorite off-Broadway theatres, Signature, announced it was offering what they described as a “grand experiment [that] deviates from the norm, presenting a new kind of theatre,” I rushed to buy my ticket. After all, the whole project was under the direction of one of our greatest living playwrights, Lynn Nottage.
Alas, some of the best laid plans… “The Watering Hole” is a sort of contemporary art exhibit. Groups of only four people are guided by a Signature staff member through a series of displays, some simply poems on large sheets of cloth, others use video and other electronics to illustrate a poem or an idea. There are no live actors, other than recorded voices and people in videos. Each installation was designed by an up-and-coming playwright/visual artist, personally selected by Ms. Nottage and Ms. Haymon.
As I expected, the themes center on the personal experiences of African-American, Latino, and, in one case, disabled, artists, related to water. This could be a fascinating creation, but unfortunately none of the exhibits are particularly notable and many times I could not wait until the Signature staff member took us to the next installation. The poetry was frequently mundane and there was very little that was intellectually stimulating. To be fair, several of the exhibits focused on our ability to appreciate the power of reflection, essentially asking us to concentrate on the nothingness.
Some of the installations had references to the challenges of the pandemic. Others were personal narratives – perhaps the most interesting was a video in which a young physically disabled man tells the story of learning to swim when he was a child. Another is a memory of what it was like to open a fire hydrant in the city to splash around in water on a hot summer day. The audience sits around a fire hydrant than eventually sends mist into the air.
For me, a former professor of theatre for 20 years, the most interesting aspect of this experience was to see all of the parts of Signature’s three-theatre complex including areas that are hidden from audiences. One of the installations put each attendee into a backstage dressing room. Eventually, participants get to sit on all three stages. While others listened to a narration, I examined the fly-galleries and stage equipment – I don’t think that was Signature’s intent, but it certainly makes you anxious to join the audience when their real season begins this fall. Some of the sites are almost eerie. Signature’s beautifully conceived lobby is stripped of all of its chairs and tables. Instead, there are three modern art ships in a huge empty space – there is none of the hubbub that makes that space come to life every night during the season – a reminder of what we missed during the last 15 months. And maybe that is the most profound message of this disappointing “grand experiment” – we yearn for the real thing and, barring any unexpected changes, it’s almost here.
No comments:
Post a Comment