Shaken but not subdued by terrorist attacks in New York, Manhattan’s Wooster Group appears in the Festival d’Automne this month, bringing a triple-header of the smart, sharp, technologically sophisticated theater that has been the trademark of this experimental collective founded in 1975 by director Elizabeth LeCompte. At a time when the United States’ military campaign in Afghanistan and anxious reactions around the country to anthrax-laced envelopes dominate the international news, the company trains laser vision once again into what makes America tick, in James Strahs’ “North Atlantic,” Eugene O’Neill’s “The Hairy Ape” and Paul Schmidt’s “À vous, volant!” — a free-style adaptation of Racine’s tragedy “Phèdre.” The three form a timely trilogy of scenes of contemporary American life.
Indeed, while any one of these is sure to provide provocative viewing, more interesting yet would be to get a larger view of the whole package presented in Paris, consisting of two revivals — “North Atlantic” (1984) and “The Hairy Ape” (1995)) — and one world premiere, “À vous, volant!". Together, these offer complementary angles on a single story of the individual in American society... beginning with the individual as machine, in “North Atlantic.” Set on an aircraft carrier participating in a secret peacekeeping mission in international waters during the Reagan Cold War era, the show takes an irreverent yet astute look at the role of the military and technology in shaping American culture.
A manic pace, ironic song-&-dance numbers, and mile-a-minute sexual banter are a smoke screen for deep-rooted gender stereotypes drilled into society by a knee-jerk faith in guns and militia. The result is a boatload, not to mention a nation, of individuals programmed to speak the same dehumanizing “code.”
The attention shifts to the individual as animal in “The Hairy Ape,” O’Neill’s expressionistic study of Yank Smith, a “stoker” in the boiler room of a transatlantic liner whose Alpha male status among his fellow grunts is pulled out from under him when the daughter of a steel magnate calls him a “filthy beast.” Told in a typically American blue collar idiom (“Youse bums!,” “I arsks yer!,” “Aw gwan!”) and starring Wooster Group member Willem Dafoe, the play treats class differences and the struggle to belong in an increasingly unnatural, even monstrous world.
After examining more classic themes in these older works, the Wooster Group writes the most contemporary chapter of its narrative with the world premiere of “À vous, volant!.” The phrase comes from badminton lingo and translates as “To You, The Birdie!.” With a title like that, the action could only take place on a badminton court... which, of course, it does (the cast, incidentally, plays an exceptionally good game, having trained with an Olympic coach). But this is a very loose adaptation of Racine’s tragedy: only a suggestion remains of Phèdre’s forbidden and destructive love for Hippolyte, the son of her lost husband Thésée. What dominates is a post-modern landscape of video monitors and hidden cameras, Plexiglas panels and aluminum tracking. So “po-mo” is it in fact that, when Dafoe, in the role of Thésée, finally enters to tell of his faraway adventures, his speech carries hints of the actor’s recent fun playing the role of the Green Goblin in the upcoming “Spiderman” movie... In the third panel of this American triptych, the theme is clearly the individual as public spectacle, something the popular media and TV reality shows are experts at in America, and which the Wooster Group masterfully reveals here.
In its explorations of the hidden recesses and bald presumptions of American society these past 30 years, and in its constant challenging of notions of performance and reality, The Group continues to question and inform. The company’s visit, in the current world atmosphere of terrorist-inspired fear and horror, is a testament to democratic values of criticism and free speech. Safe and well — in the wake of the World Trade Center strikes, not far from the troupe’s headquarters — The Wooster Group proves again with these three shows that it has its finger on the pulse of our troubled times.
“North Atlantic,” Nov 14-17, Tue-Fri 8:30pm, Sat 4:30pm & 8:30pm; “The Hairy Ape,” Nov 22-26, Thu-Sat & Mon 8:30pm, Sun 4:30pm; “A vous, volant!,” Dec 3-7, Mon-Fri 8:30pm, Centre Pompidou, pl Georges Pompidou, 4e, M° Hôtel de Ville, 120F/90F, tel: 01 53 45 17 17
