A man and woman stare at each other, searchingly. They’re sitting at
a table in the center of a barren stage. In front of them lies a row of
stacked rocks, arranged as neatly as buds in a flowerbed. Likewise, the
wall behind them is knotted with rock formations, giving the impression
that these two people are trapped in the bottom of a mine — or a
fish bowl. The lights dim and we hear the sound of gushing water. The
lights come up and the woman emerges, center stage, to tell us
everything this play will not be about. In the next scene —
which, like many others, is void of words — the man appears to
have an asthma attack. He wheezes, flops about the stage, teeters
precariously as the woman tries to steady him. The two of them wear
matching periwinkle outfits with fin-like ruffles and iridescent orange
trim, making their bodies appear to blend together. Their death dance
becomes a seamless pas de deux.
Like every other element of The Future Project: Sunday Will
Come (a collaboration between Campo Santo and the Erika Chong Shuch
Performance Project, now onstage at San Francisco’s Intersection for
the Arts), this opening duet is spare, evocative, and cryptic. Not
until about two thirds of the way through the play will most audience
members understand what’s happening, but when everything clicks
together, there’s not a wasted bit of dialogue nor single excess body
movement. It’s this economy of language that makes the show so
effective. You think it’s going one way and then it goes the other.
More surprising is the idea that a play that combines dance and
spoken word — two characteristically profuse forms of expression
— could achieve such rawness and austerity. Part of it owes to
the choreography (by Erika Chong Shuch, who plays the woman), the
chemistry between dancers Shuch and Sean San José (the man), and
the musical canvas provided by Denizen Kane, who hovers in the
background strumming his guitar. But it’s largely the script —
written by the performers, with help from Octavio Solis and Philip Kan
Gotunda — that makes this work. Most of the dialogue occurs in
blank verse, with sophisticated use of metaphor: Shuch and San
José introduce the concept of “otherness” when they decide to
quarantine a sick fish, and name their healthy fish “Other.” The
writing has a certain rhythmic command that you only find in spoken
word, but there’s nothing too showy about it. Even Kane, a poet whose
groggy, mumbling voice often makes his words indecipherable, is
terrific in this production. His songs perfectly hew to the characters’
interactions.
Poetry and dance both traffic in emotional terms, but rarely are
they so complete or exacting. In this play, though, big things get
transmitted in small ways and every minute gesture becomes important.
It would take a cold and disaffected soul to not empathize with Shuch
in the closing scene, when she stands alone, addressing an empty
stage.
Some spoken-word artists take universal concepts and make them
personal. Others take the personal and make it political. Marc Bamuthi
Joseph belongs to the latter school, in that he’s known for latching on
to a text, connecting it to some larger idea, and making the whole
thing grow. For his latest piece, he fixated on the concept of “eco
apartheid” — the idea that environmentalism hasn’t yet found a
vocabulary that appeals to inner-city neighborhoods. Bamuthi’s solution
is to marry the language of sustainability with the forms and styles of
hip-hop.
Bamuthi dubbed his new project Red, Black and Green: A Blues.
On Monday, Nov. 2, he’ll perform parts of it at Berkeley Repertory
Theatre as part of a solo showcase called The SpokenWorld. The show
will open with excerpts of old material (The Scourge, Word
Becomes Flesh, and The Breaks), followed by two components
of Red, Black, and Green — a poem set to Bethanie Hines’
photographs of the Uptown district in Chicago and a short documentary
by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, shot at one of the Life Is Living events in
Harlem’s Riverbank State Park. (Bamuthi will enhance the visuals with
original dance choreography.) Ultimately, Red, Black and Green
will include a more elaborate theater piece based on interviews with
festival participants.
Such multimedia endeavors are always a risky proposition, but
they’ve become Bamuthi’s stock in trade. Like the Future Project
performers, he seeks to align dance and narrative in a provocative way,
using spoken word as a filter. The trick is knowing how to economize:
Once the ideas get bigger, the presentation has to get as small and
compact as possible. That’s the only way to make it stick.
