[ssba]
The Temptation of St. Anthony
Reviewed by Jessica Salans
Four Larks at an Undisclosed Location
Through March 6.
RECOMMENDED:
Immersive is a hot topic word, hoping to describe new forms of theatre branching out to redefine the relationship between artist and audience. But what does it mean?
Four Larks latest, wildly crafted lament, The Temptation of St. Anthony, has been described as an immersive junkyard-opera. Here’s how the poignantly engaged, stealthily inventive, and breathtakingly imaginative group achieves immersive theatre.
-You are immediately engaged before the evening’s performance, receiving an e-mail confirmation enclosed with the details of the secret location. (Intrigue sparks, anticipation mounts.)
-You are greeted, warmly, by a founding Lark, who invites you in as an old friend, visiting for dinner. (Their home is plastered in white and you wonder how many books they ripped alive to share their writing on the walls.)
-A waterfall of pages swathes your gaze (slackened with wonder) and your fingers trace the paper (unconsciously). You emerge through the fluid wardrobe into a space of expectant, murmuring voices, sharing wine and ogling the decorative landscape of exposed wires, rusted antiques, more books and pages, pages, pages.
-The play is announced and the audience hushes voices and phones, filing in to fill seats or poufs on the floor. The artist, our writer-protagonist, is already cross legged, diligently, with frentic focus, laboring at his typewriter.
-The dimmed lights reveal a hand, curving around a (papered) wall stage right. A band sits atop a makeshift staircase of white painted dressers, boxes and books, books, books. The drummer radiates magic, the piano is ready to be struck, the heavenly gold harp and the familiar wood of the cello the only two colors from the world of white paper and pale peach carpet. The energy of the ensemble (there are performers either lying down under the typewriter bench, curled into a chair, slunk onto a pile of books) is slightly buzzing. They are not yet awake, but they are ready to be ignited.
-The recorded narration of our protagonist fills our bodies as the bodies of the ensemble begin to engulf him in a nightmare/dream. The musicians are the universe. They dictate movement, providing another character for the ensemble to play with. Their haunting, Danny Elfman like scoring transports you. You are enraptured by the stirring vowels of the singer’s appetites. You are awed by the sinuous flow of bodies ever in motion- becoming birds, becoming books, becoming stones.
-There is an automated ease embedded in these actors and musicians, a trust from the director and design team to cultivate storytelling not so much from a narrative as from a actor’s body as its first point of departure. Layers of multi-media and design shape surprise and wonderment; you feel yourself falling further into the safety of the story, even while the story is deceptive and spurious.
Does the audience ever walk on stage? Do the actors ever interact directly with the audience? To both- no. Immersion, in the world of Four Larks, means consumption to the point of infatuation. Like a good book, you entrench yourself in the world and when it closes, you wake up wanting to return.
Four Larks The Temptation of St. Anthony; Undisclosed location; Thurs. & Friday, March 5 & 6 only, 8 p.m. https://www.fourlarks-tickets.com
