Okay, so this won't be so much a review as it'll be a slathering of praise.
A photo from the Cynthia Hopkins/Accinosco production Must Don't Whip 'Um has been on the cover of the Wexner Center's programs all season, so I guess it's fair to say I had some high expectations for this show. I skipped it at The Public's Under the Radar festival, knowing I could see it here. I'm kind of regretting it now. I'm going to be out of town performing in my own show, so there's no chance I can catch it again.
The show started with a voice-over from the Narrator, assumedly Cynthia Hopkins, explaining, essentially, what we were about to see, the farewell concert of her mother's music career, an event that took place shortly before her mother's disappearance. There was some milling about on stage and a couple of scenes acted with the aid of some clever blue screen before Cynthia Hopkins appeared, the music started and I began to cry.
Yes, Cynthia, you had me at hello. (Did I just write that? Sorry.)
The Performance Space (yes it's called that) at the Wexner Center is a fairly small, charcoal-box theatre that seats about 90 on the floor and famously has no right angles. Accinosco filled it to bursting with stages and stuff. One constructed wall was decorated with broken records, another featured some controls for the multiple video cameras and the projector, and doors to a small control room. Performers in the show actually made use of these controls, in-between and during their stage roles, and often while they were playing horns and/or singing.
The program makes reference to the group's "high impact but lo-fi aesthetic" that gives "the show its uncanny sense of do-it-yourself exoticism." Perfect description. The projection screen was, in fact, four screens (the kind many of our parents had in the 70s) attached to each other. There were wooden railroad ties on the hanging tracks for the cameras, there was some tall grass growing in front of the stage, there were boxes of records on the floor, a piano decorated with what appeared to be mirrors, and their costumes were layered ordeals of gypsy dresses, grass skirts, and brightly-colored suits.
There was also the band, Gloria Deluxe. Or rather there was a band, and also a show. The majority of the band spent most of its time on a platform raised about 8 feet in the air, the underside of which had big lightbulbs galore. There were two flimsy curtains which occasionally turned the band into a series of musical phantoms and hid some of the technical action on stage.
Most of the projections were created in real-time, during the show, some of them were even created in front of the audience. It was a concert, they were playing for us, so we were part of the story, but we even got to go behind-the-scenes, as it were, to see how the performance was being made. It was very, very intimate.
The band was great, by the way, they could really, really play, and the music was emotional and joyous and then sad, but always organic and raw. Tom Waits definitely came to mind.
So far, this has mostly been a description of the show, which is, I guess, because I really liked it. It was exciting, engaging at a deeper and more visceral level then most plays, and quite different from anything I've seen. It was like a mix of a Lone Twin show and The Last Waltz (The Band's movie). The only thing I disliked was the last song, in which Cynthia Hopkins was only present on the stage in video. It was a neat trick that I won't give away, but maybe it would've worked better elsewhere. I'd have liked the end to have had a little more human contact.
I understand the show will be going to On the Boards next, so if you live up that way, do yourself a BIG favor and get to it. And if you live near Columbus, what are you doing? Drop everything, get there. You WILL NOT regret it.
Links
The Wexner Center of the Arts
Cynthia Hopkins / Gloria Deluxe (MP3s)
