Playwright: Jackie Sibblies Drury. At: Victory Gardens Theater at the Biograph, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: 773-871-3000; www.victorygardens.org; $20-$50. Runs through: April 29
Every performance workshop, sooner or later, essays the kind of project where a team of young student-actors choose a historical eventin this case, the attempted genocide of a southwestern African tribe by German colonialistsas the basis for a text forged through classroom exercises inspired by the available existing documentation. When the latter proves to be insufficiently topical in content, the eager thespians depicted in Jackie Sibblies Drury's play come to rely increasingly on their own resources as a gateway to the experience they propose to replicate, a practice leading them dangerously close to the boundaries of aesthetic distance.
Our ensembleidentified, at this stage, by such generic labels as "White Man" or "Black Woman"begin self-consciously, intent on "Process" and recoiling from the disturbing images inherent in their subject, despite the actor-playing-Black-Man's exhortations to greater "authenticity" in their exploration. No sooner do we relax in anticipation of continuing in this satirical vein, however, than the action suddenly strikes a familiar note: the work songs of internment camps become those of antebellum chain gangs, the German guards' accents resemble those of the America South and the scenario assumes an intensity terrifying even the participants.
Long before Stanislavski introduced theatrical-training techniques based in personal recollections, the myth of play actors carried away by their illusion has been a popular literary theme. Even after the improvisation is halted, we detect a marked difference in the ease with which the individual players are able to divest themselves of their recently shared emotional upheavel. The operative word "shared" applies to us, too, since director Eric Ting has instructed his cast to sucker-punch us with slam poetry-style vocalizations and choreography invoking an infectious visceral response that tends to obscure the play's intellectual dimensionssometimes a bad thing, sometimes not.
Whether you agree with all of the arguments Drury raises"Black" being synonymous with "African," for examplewhat's certain is that a story recounting the progress of a potentially devastating game of "let's-pretend" demands a profound level of trust among the real-life actors whose portrayals require them to immerse themselves in dionysic frenzy seven times a week without likewise succumbing to meltdown. This commitment can be contagiouson opening night, during the abrupt blackout ending the show, a spontaneous whoop was heard in the darkness before the cast, now safely distanced from their roles, filed out to enthusiastic cheers and whistles for their well-deserved curtain call.