Daniel Irizarry plays the mad king in Robert Lyons’s My Onliness.
Echoing through the halls and into the New Ohio Theatre’s performance space is My Onliness, a daring new experimental work co-produced by the New Ohio, the collective One-Eighth Theater, and IRT Theater. Written by Robert Lyons, the artistic director of the New Ohio, My Onliness takes elements inspired by Polish dramatist Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and transforms them into what One-Eighth declares is the New Absurd. And wonderfully absurd it is.
Cynthia LaCruz (left) as Morbitida sings one of the numbers in My Onliness.
The action begins when a woman named Morbidita (singer Cynthia LaCruz), sends a mysterious petition (in the shape of a garbage bag) to a mad king known as My Onliness (played by Daniel Irizarry, who also directs), only for it to be refused. From there, the madness descends as the storylines unfold, one on top of the other: Morbidita accuses the king of killing her father and marrying her mother, while a character simply known as The Writer (trumpeter Rhys Tivey) can’t believe he is not the son of his adopted father, the king. Or is he? Along for the ride are two Mediums of the court (deaf actors Dickie Hearts and Malik Paris), who translate it all into American Sign Language (ASL) for the audience, and two omnipresent musicians (guitarist Drew Fleming and soprano Joanie Brittingham), who put it all into sweet song.
Witkiewicz (also known as Witkacy), an early 20th-century Polish writer, photographer, painter, and philosopher, espoused a theory of pure form as an arrangement of components—such as words, gestures, and actions—all of which highlight the “metaphysical strangeness of existence.”
“Director Irizarry pulls all the visual elements together in what one can only term as ‘rehearsed chaos.’”
Here, Lyons and Irizarry give the audience just that: A wind-up toy chicken crosses a metaphorical road. A life-size voodoo doll is tossed to the audience and back (it’s one of many times the fourth wall is broken for interaction with and addresses to the audience). The Writer furiously scribbles Einstein’s theories on the walls. The Writer dances a pas de deux with a Lobster (yes, lobster). An abstruse stream of poetic existentialist dialogue and phrases (e.g., “Take me to the word abyss where senselessness makes sense”; “unique in the superhuman dignity of your deepest being”), is translated into ASL. Performers indulge in wild acrobatics. And, to top it all off, there is genre-bending music by Kamala Sankaram.
As a whole, My Onliness thrives on strangeness in all forms. From its eclectic set pieces by Jungah Han (which feature metallic items hung from the ceiling) to the off-kilter costumes by James Terrell and Brittani Beresford (one of which features an actor entering in a unicorn mask—as well as, of course, the actor dressed as a lobster) to bits of improvised choreography, director Irizarry pulls all of these visual elements together in what one can only term as “rehearsed chaos.” Indeed, as an anchor for the deaf actors to work off of, hearing actors seated throughout the audience help Hearts and Paris keep time with the rest by signing cues throughout the show.
Rhys Tivey as The Writer dances with a lobster. Photographs by Suzanne Fiore Photography.
The performances of the actors help elevate Lyons’s text, and the show’s overall offbeat rhythm, to interesting heights. Irizarry plays the mad king like a twisted ringleader—jumping, flipping, and even flinging himself into the audience, eagerly egging them on (“Toss him. Now toss me!”). For their part, Hearts and Paris gamely take on whatever is, quite literally, thrown at them.
Both Tivey and LaCruz join Fleming and Brittingham in recreating Sankaram’s music, culminating in a soundscape of strangeness. From LaCruz’s soulful vocal stylings on “Let the Phantom Dim” (“Fill your goblet to the brim / And let the phantom dim”) to the rousing psychedelic rock sounds of Fleming’s guitar to Brittingham’s skillful operatic aria toward the end of the show (“I am a black star in the white-hot night / While you are a lying guttersnipe!”), you’ll find yourself howling along into the abyss.
Judging from all of the madness in My Onliness, it’s clear that the artists of One-Eighth Theater are keeping the tradition of colorful experimentation alive in New York’s downtown theater scene. For that, one can only be thankful and give in to the chaos. After all, as the song says: “It’s all so frightfully exciting here at the abyss.”
My Onliness runs through Sept. 24 at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher St.). Tickets are $25 and $17 for students and seniors. Running time is approximately 80 minutes. Schedule varies—for exact days and times, and to purchase in-person or live-stream tickets, visit newohiotheatre.org.
