Do You Know You Are Nowhere?

With a flash of bright light and a bone-rattling buzz, Youarenowhere begins with an assault on the senses. The show's creator and star, Andrew Schneider, enters the performance space seeming as disoriented as his audience. He tries to find his feet in reality, but this is no small task, since a taut thread of existential anxiety may be the only thing holding Youarenowhere together. Will this hypermediated anxiety destroy Schneider? Will it destroy us all? Where are we, anyway? The answer, of course, is Youarenowhere. Schneider's intermedial mashup avoids letting the audience get comfortable in any genre, morphing from an existential diatribe into a TED Talk on metaphysics. From there, it becomes a magic show and an experimental dance piece. The accelerated and indeterminate nature of Youarenowhere could not succeed without its seamless choreography of sound, lighting and tech cues. This design is expertly executed by the show's crew: technical director Karl Franklin Allen, light/video supervisor Daniel Jackson, sound supervisor Bobby McElver and stage manager Alessandra Calabi. Consider the work of these technicians a remedy for theatergoers who haven't had their breath taken away in a long time.

The hyper-technological and multi-genre performance art style Schneider draws from is not entirely new, and he certainly cites his sources. Indeed, the citational nature of network technology—with its wikis and file sharing and retweeting—creates many opportunities for reference within performance. Considering the breakneck pace at which most of Youarenowhere progresses, it's impossible to catch all the references or to pursue each philosophical abyss opened up by Schneider in his tweaky, nervous manner. Schneider splices songs by Rihanna and Robyn in with classical music and an especially touching rendition of Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town," awash in cobalt blue.

For followers of The Wooster Group, the influence of Schneider's seven years of membership in that company will be readily apparent. In one sequence, a video projection of a young Schneider (at a filmed audition) ghosts the present-day Schneider. He recites a monologue with his past self with hardly a flaw. The "hardly" should be emphasized here since it is the ever-diminishing distinction between man and machine that inspires the technological and choreographic design of this moment. There is more philosophical exploration to be done on this subject, however, in the script of the play.

Though the sound, lighting and tech design of Youarenowhere formally performs the ever-present tension between (and fusion of) technology and humanity, this is precisely where the written script falls short. There exists a lacuna between Schneider's buggy, technologically mediated physicality and the words he actually says. Schneider lectures us on metaphysics and love, but he doesn't offer much tangible insight into the effects of technology and the Internet on the human experiences of love, loss and addiction. Youarenowhere's only missing piece is its reluctance to verbally process the very difficult and very daunting possibility that we are becoming machines and that machines are becoming us. Again, Schneider physically performs this tension, but his monologues tend to skirt the issue.

Schneider muses that "we exist in each other's realities. But maybe not in the way that we think that we do." When theater succeeds in calling upon us to question the very nature of our existence, it is worth seeing. It seems prudent to forewarn sensitive audiences of the bright light and loud sound in Youarenowhere. Furthermore, people with a history of anxiety or panic attacks should take note of the show's intense pacing and content. That being said, Youarenowhere could be extremely cathartic for the anxious, the lovelorn and the grieving. In provoking both awe and intense existential questioning, Youarenowhere (somehow) simultaneously satisfies one's inner child and cynic. It should not be missed.

Youarenowhere runs until April 3 at 3LD Art & Technology Center (80 Greenwich St. between Edgar and Rector Sts.) in the Financial District. Tickets range from $15-$35 and are available here or by calling 3LD Art & Technology Center at 212-645-0374.

A Chinese Tragedy in Subtitles

At first glance, Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America's newest experimental production Behind The Mask seems as unapproachable and daunting as the foreign-language category of the Oscars. The entire play is spoken, performed and occasionally sung in that beautifully intimidating language, Mandarin Chinese. One might view it appreciatively from afar, mildly aware that time and effort has been put into presenting a culturally distinctive performance for a largely English-speaking audience. Film has progressed (in more ways than one) beyond that of its centuries-old grudging cousin, the theater. As with Ida, the winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars, or as with any of the acclaimed films of Akira Kurosawa's pastoral Japan, Francois Truffaut's urban France, or Abbas Kiarostami's childlike Iran, one would expect theater to follow in film's foreign language experiment. But, as Behind The Mask shows us, the medium of theater performance does not always sit well with subtitles. 

Director Chongren Fan gambles with a single, slippery aspect of his audience's attention: that the subtitles running on a screen next to the performers will not distract from the performers themselves. Understandably, most of the audience is of Chinese descent, and the flashing white words do not faze them, but many (including this writer) possess an embarrassingly rudimentary understanding of Mandarin Chinese, and must prepare themselves for a veritable tennis match of reading the dialogue and actually watching the show. During one monologue, an actor mentions "the magic of attention" that first drew her into the world of theater. But the medium she professes to worship struggles to hold onto that magic, at least for English speakers watching an aurally enchanting, yet unhappily remote, Chinese-language performance.

But beyond such technical (and bodily) hardships, everyone in the audience—English or Chinese-speaking—understands that they are watching a play about a rehearsal for a play. A struggling theater troupe somewhere in China is putting on their production of an ancient myth about a tyrannical king who kills his master swordsmiths when he realizes that their blood is required to forge the world's sharpest blades. Sixteen years after the twin deaths, the swordsmiths' son Mei Jian Chi seeks his revenge against the bloodthirsty king, and (with a considerable recalculation of what it means to live and die) offers his decapitated "living head" as part of a deal to kill the ruler. In sporadic, poignant interruptions, the actors rehearsing the play break off into individual monologues, describing their lives as artists in a largely discouraging contemporary environment. 

Fan toys with several peculiar themes in Behind The Mask, but perhaps one is more ubiquitous than we think: life after death. Dead characters regularly walk and talk to living ones; death is signified by the removal of a brightly colored mask covering the actors' faces, and the mask itself becomes a "living head." Behind The Mask's ghosts, both real and cerebral, are as present as the living. Old vendettas and dead generational vengeances thrive in the hearts of the young, as do ancient values. In this respect, there is an organic, moving parallel to be drawn between Mei Jian Chi's quest to find his courage and each individual actor's risky decision to become a performer. Writers Fend BaiMing and Huang WeiRuo have mastered the stumbling, yet stirring, speeches of the sons and daughters of austere Asian parents. There is a controlled rebellion and rapt wonderment in their words as the actors of the theater troupe defend their creative decisions and their all-consuming love for the theater.

It is not difficult to picture any one of this play's actual performers delivering similar addresses to their own parents at some point in their lives. Behind their exuberant dialogue plays a rousing soundtrack, emotive and airy during the monologues, and warlike and drum-heavy during the mythologizing. It's no wonder that the music regulates the pulse of the play; composer Xiren Wang is a self-described "aural magician." More striking to the eye is the red-and-yellow-colored set, with flashy posters of Bruce Lee and eyeless Kabuki masks gazing out at the audience. A giant tragedy mask occupies center stage; it seems to portend an inevitable resolution to the play's tensions between life and death. So although the English speaker, that ever-adaptable breed of audience, finds a vexing inability to fully appreciate Fan's enchanting take on Behind The Mask, strong communal performances and a good deal of affable philosophy serve up a delicious, if neck-cracking, feast for their eyes and ears. 

Presented by the Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, Behind the Mask—a Play by Chinese authors Feng BaiMing and Huang WeiRuo, ran at Theater for the New City (155 First Ave. between 9th and 10th Sts. in Manhattan) through July 12.  For more information, visit www.yangtze-rep-theatre.org.

An Unholy Sacrament

From the Ancient Romans, to the German Gothics, to the creators of Grand Guignol, theatre artists have long been experimenting with elements of the grotesque. Simply put, theatre of the grotesque is carnivalesque and tragicomic—a veritable mix of horror, ugliness, irreverence and dark humor. While Isaac Byrne's direction of Sara Florence Fellini's In Vestments has its grotesque aspirations, overall the production's textual and scenographic clutter make for a rather discombobulating experience. Eschewing simplicity for bricolage, In Vestments is a thorny (and sometimes fun) romp through stylistic purgatory.

Byrne creates a few pleasingly grotesque stage images and moments, which are In Vestments' greatest strengths.  The sight of burly, pop-eyed Father Falke (Ted Wold) stomping around like a gargantuan child in double plaster arm casts contributes to the production's darkly humorous vein.  The delightfully gruesome and sacrilegious living crucifix statue (Eric Soto as Joshua) will greatly entertain some audience members (and possibly offend some others).  Pierre Marais' haunting French musical interludes as the devilish Jakomo are oddly beautiful and compelling, even though they contribute to the stylistic confusion of the production. 

Though it has its compelling moments, In Vestments suffers from lack of artistic unity. From the outset, audience members are greeted by ghastly faceless nuns (played by Amy Higgs, Erika Phoebus, and Cait Murphy), who hand them small slips of paper outlining explicit directions to "keep a respectful distance between yourself and members of the opposite sex," and to avoid "lolligagging in aisles." This interactive touch foreshadows some kind of immersivity, as if one will be attending a Catholic mass. Yet the immersive design of the production stops here; while the production is technically "in the round," there is no further crossing of the fourth wall, and no more ambulatory or participatory elements. While In Vestments does present intersting details and moments, its gimmick-oriented myopia inhibits an overall stylistic and philosophical unity.  

Another example of In Vestments' disjointedness is its transitional music, which alters between church organs, chilling chords, and angry contemporary songs. Many of these musical choices are called for directly in Fellini's play text, which is itself the source of the production's stylistic schizophrenia. Playing out over an unforgiving two and half hours, the play's numerous melodramatic narrative threads include heroin addiction, child molestation, suicide, church corruption, neglectful parents, poisoned wine, dismemberment, and plenty of good old fashioned Catholic guilt.  In performance, the interior struggles of Father Nate (Adam Belvo), Father Yves (Samuel Adams) and Father James (Carl Danielsen) coax the viewer towards empathy, but the play switches gears before one can really settle into any genuine care for these characters. Fellini's intensity as Maeve is as unrelenting as her script: her screaming and breaking of objects lacks control, which created a slightly unsafe and affronting audience environment. 

In Vestments comes close to a critique of organized religion, but its message is clouded by excessive and indulgent narratives of drug addiction, sexual and emotional abuse, corruption, and suicide.  While the experimental spirit of the playwright and performers deserve recognition, In Vestments might benefit from a more controlled and deliberate execution.

In Vestments ran to May 30 at West Park Presbyterian Church (165 West 86th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus). For more information, visit www.infinitesighs.com.