THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: July 16, 2004
The audience was game. And the
Game was on. But nobody wins in "Monstropoly." The Eveoke Theatre
piece is constructed as a board game, and the flexible Lyceum Space is squared
off, with the audience seated all around the board. Instead of properties and
Utilities for sale, the spaces are more socially relevant elements of our
society, from Military to Media, Retail to Religion. Each section of the
audience, which is expected to participate, is labeled with such provocative
monikers such as Pleasure is Paramount, Money = Freedom. The multi-billionaire
Game Pieces assigned to each section are enigmatically named Sinkerman, the
Woman with Breasts Pressed to the Wind, Holly Hobby Holding a Pineapple on the
Edge of a Precipice, the Roly-Poly Bug and the more familiar Raggedy Ann and
Andy. When you figure it out, explain it to me.
It gets much more complex, and
takes quite a while for the rules to be explained. There are Money Bunnies who
cavort and dance around periodically. There are several Jokers, including Dice
Boy, who serves as a rolling human die, and an armed policeman who imposes
stiff curtailments of human rights and arrests and tortures Game Pieces at
will. The chief joker is The Lovely Jo Anne Love, played by the adorable Jo
Anne Glover, who describes each of the squares in hip-hop rhythm and rhyme, and
interacts aggressively with the audience. With all the explication, it's still
not clear if the observers are supposed to have a serious or a cynical take on
our societal ills and what good buying them will do. There were examples of
both throughout the lengthy, 2 1/2 hour evening.
As publicized, the objective was
to draw attention to the "prison-industrial complex," which includes
not only deplorable conditions, but also the fact that American prisoners are
used as ultra-cheap labor for creating money-making goods, from lingerie to
light fixtures. This feature is not particularly highlighted onstage, although
we are nearly beaten to death with visual and auditory images of imprisonment.
The results of the effort are
disturbing, but not always in the ways intended. The social commentary is
reductive and redundant, the dance is minimal, the drama nearly nil. There are
many talented performers involved, but they are shamefully underused: Acclaimed
actors like Glover and Jim Chovick, dancers such as butoh expert Charlene
Penner and Eveoke stars Nikki Dunnan and Ericka Moore, whose company swan-song
this is. Though Moore and Dunnan's prolonged first-act duet, as Raggedy Ann and
Andy, was well executed, the choreography was tedious and superfluous, unrelated
as it was to the Game that followed. Overall, the concept overwhelmed the
content and intent, Co-directors Gina Angelique and Michael Mufson took a
chance on this game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
©2004
Patté Productions Inc.