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If you've suffered your share of philistine escapism, be it in the form of talking dog acts or Really Small Talentshows of Shakespeare skits, salvation may be at hand. After the unqualified success of their last piece, Ginger's Green, the co-artistic directors of Imago Theater--Jerry Mouawad and Carol Triffle--are back with a new multimedia work. Dead End Ed is another of the company's altered states of reality, where tape recorders finish the sentences of those talking into them, deja vu becomes a cinematic phenomenon and characters find themselves named after other characters in T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party. Willamette Week spoke to Mouawad last week during a break from the chaos and clutter that usually surround a tech week. Willamette Week: You had originally scheduled a new piece entitled Confessions of a Sound Man for this part of your season, but I see that one of Dead End Ed's short pieces now bears that name. Jerry Mouawad: We started rehearsing Confessions, but I wasn't happy with it. It was too long, and it was very text-based, almost becoming a narrative piece. I was more interested in combining all the various influences on Imago's style--the ontological explorations of Richard Foreman, as well as the physical vaudeville of Jacques Lecoq. So I started trimming Confessions, finally reducing it down to this one scene. But I've incorporated other elements from the text and have distributed them throughout Dead End Ed. Does development continue even though you're now into tech week? Development is continuous. I see you're using a revolving set of four rooms for this piece. The character of Ed is moving through a world that's not stationary, that can't be fixed. It will be a twisted version of the scenes in Les Enfants du Paradise, where Jean-Louis Barrault is walking, and the scenery behind him is moving. This will be more kinetic, like the choreography I developed for the Foreman pieces, in that I use the set architecturally to choreograph how the actors move through it. It also comes into play with the text work. The movement includes how the lines are said. The most difficult piece at the moment is a chase sequence where I play a room service waiter trying to deliver a meal to Carol. Whenever I enter a room she flees to the adjoining room. So you have the whole set continually turning? Yes. It has a definite Marx Brothers taste to it. But not only am I having to choreograph our chase, I must also choreograph the backstage crew who are turning the set, so that they won't be seen working. The scene changes may be the most demanding aspect of this show. Other than the crew it'll be just you and Carol on stage. This is the first big Imago show where it's only been the two of us alone. But this is a show where the number 2 reigns. Each room has two doors; there are a series of doubles and opposites at play. In one monologue, Ed has a doppelganger whom he keeps just missing. We've also devised a puppet self for Carol, which is frightening because it looks just like her. Our characters are like Foreman's in that they're battling their own existence. Also, we've taken an idea from Eliot about how difficult it is for us as individuals to come to an exact knowledge of ourselves. Your work is noted for the interesting soundscapes you create, and this piece has quite an impressive range of music artists. We've some original pieces by Waltzing Mice, as well as work by 3 Leg Torso, Miss Murgatroid, and some tonal selections from Greg Ives. I think this might be one of our more accessible shows. It should even appeal to those who might be a bit wary of fringe work. |
