House
Taken Over
Imago Theater, 17
SE 8th Ave., 231-9581
7:30 pm Thursdays, 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays
Closes July 24
$12-$15.
At the heart of Julio Cortázar's story "House Taken
Over" stands an enigmatic mansion. The inhabitants are a reclusive
brother and sister who, long settled into a "quiet and simple
marriage," find themselves slowly driven from their labyrinthine
home.
As with Harry and Edna in Edward Albee's A Delicate
Balance, Cortázar's Julio and Irene must escape
a house taken over by a nameless terror. The analogy seems
warranted, as Edna, like Irene, is busy with her needlework
before fleeing, just as Harry hurriedly forsakes his French
studies, the very language that Julio is devoted to in the
tale. Was Albee referencing Cortázar?
Critics have conjured up many meanings for the story. Perhaps
it's a veiled critique of Peronist Argentina, or maybe it's
a fable on death, with the house serving as corrupt body.
Cortázar, never minding interpretation, stated that
it was simply a record of a nightmare he'd had. Analysis
aside, "House Taken Over" is a haunting tale and proves,
as critic Martin Seymour-Smith maintained, that Cortázar
is one of the few great students of Kafka.
Imago's artistic co-director Jerry Mouawad read Cortázar's
story years ago, and its menace and mystery stayed with
him. The latest Imago piece is Mouawad's own adaptation
of the story with a few added touches. The play stars Mouawad
as Julio and artistic co-director Carol Triffle as Irene.
But the real star may be the set, which is designed by
Mouawad with illustrations by Simona Bortis. Though the
actual playing area is minute, Mouawad has built a mammoth
stage behind it, laid with a cat's cradle of tracks. On
these tracks slide 130 foam-core panels that depict the
various rooms and corridors of the house. Through subtle,
stylized movement, Mouawad and Triffle seem to travel through
Cortázar's cavernous mansion, while behind them six
scene-shifters will manipulate the panels, creating a kaleidoscopic
tour. "Rather than a higher-tech approach, we're really
working with Flintstone mechanics here," Mouawad says.
Directing the traffic of panels is a logistical nightmare.
Mouawad has approached the task not so much as a choreographer
but more as a railroad switchman. Each track has been given
a geographical name--"New York," "Chicago," etc.--and it's
up to the six scene-shifters to get their panels to the
proper destinations.
Imago's theater itself is a warren of rooms worthy of Cortázar.
On a recent visit costumes and props from past productions
crowded passageways, while in the upstairs loft, where Ajax
was performed, Mouawad worked on the actual panel design.
Inspired by the architecture of the story, Simona Bortis'
illustrations of the house's interior had been transferred
onto architectural blueline paper. Using a rudimentary form
of blueprint processing, Mouawad has burned each of Bortis'
images onto the individual panels with the aid of four middle-school-style
overhead projectors. Each image took eight hours to transfer.
The great windows in the loft, through which Mouawad famously
pulled in the sun as part of Ajax's lighting design,
were shrouded in dense fabric to concentrate the projector's
light.
"At first I thought of the set as a giant scroll, or as
a Rolodex," says Mouawad. But his final design seems the
correct one. The weave of tracks mimics the lines of yarn
from Irene's constant knitting. At the end of the piece,
before Julio and Irene's final escape, a giant sweater begins
to unravel as the house consumes the yarn, like the Minotaur
stealing the vital clue of thread. The house becomes a cross
between a magic box and a coffin.
Joining Triffle and Mouawad on stage is vocalist Lyndee
Mah, who portrays a mysterious lady in red, a character
not found in Cortázar's story, but one familiar to
readers of horror and mystery. The lady in red inhabits
a lost room in the house that only Irene can find. Light
czar Jeff Forbes designed the piece's lighting, while Triffle
provides the excellent costumes.
In keeping with the chamber feel of the piece, Waltzing
Mice's Katie Griesar has created an original score for a
cabaret quintet that uses traditional and toy instruments.
Griesar, who plays both bass and banjo ukulele, is joined
by pianist and percussionist Clay Hilman, classical guitarist
Adam Myer, wind instrumentalist Erik Yates and Trevor Matney
on viola and violin.
Those who have followed Imago's work are familiar with
similar adaptations of 20th-century fiction. Two years ago
the company produced one of the most memorable pieces of
theater in Portland, Half-Light, based on a short
story by Gabriel García Márquez. Another García
Márquez tale inspired the company's production of
Variedad the year before. With House Taken Over,
Imago has again taken an imaginative writer's work and transformed
it into an inspired literary cabaret.
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 30, 1999
|
