Playwright: Charles L. Mee
At: Hometown Theatre Project at The Spareroom, 2416 W. North
Phone: 847-800-8925; $15
Runs through: Sept. 10 only
By Jonathan Abarbanel
Hometown Theatre Project, all Northwestern University theater students and alums, makes its debut with this ambitious physical show. The troupe lists no artistic director or other creative leader, suggesting a collective approach to theater, although this specific production is directed with keen precision by Tracy Strausberg.
Modern artist Robert Rauschenberg gained fame for his mixed-media collages or combines ( his word ) documenting commonplaces and headlines of American life, circa the 1930s to the 1960s. Inspired by his work, the experimental New York-based SITI Company created bobrauschenbergamerica in 2001 as a live-action ensemble equivalent of a combine. Image-driven rather than text-driven, it incorporates seemingly random texts that playwright Charles Mee drew from Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Rauschenberg himself ( lotta' white gay guys ) and lesser-known female performers who helped develop the original work.
As recreated by Hometown, there's much to fill the eye and ear. Brittney Knight Lower's scenic design artfully strews a quilt, a rubber chicken, license plates, western straw hats, Christmas lights, clocks, TV tables, tires, an old toolbox and other items across the informal playing area while Emily Crespo's costumes hover at the mid-20th century ( loved the ankle-length polka dot skirt ) . Aurally, an old radio sounds snatches of Carter Family gospel, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, Woody Guthrie, Billie Holiday, the Ink Spots, Aaron Copland, Judy Garland, Rodgers and Hart and more, some of which accompany line dancing, square dancing, the mambo and other popular dance steps. Among other physical actions are a girl on roller skates and a couple who create a human martini sliding atop a gin-and-olive bedecked plastic tarp. All are well-executed by this disciplined and agile troupe.
Among the texts, a running commentary on the time/space continuum and a description of the beauties of Los Alamos, N.M., capture attention, as do three monologues by Bob's mom, who repeats 'Art was not a part of our lives' in Port Arthur, Texas, where Rauschenberg grew up poor during the Depression.
The trouble is that the random texts do not sustain one's interest. What's being done physically quickly becomes more interesting than most of what's said. When action and text both lack inspiration, bobrauschenbergamerica stalls, as during a noisy sequence about improvising movies. At 110 intermissionless minutes, it's a long evening in substantial part because even the physical action is episodic, and the total work provides few emotional hooks despite intermittent dialogue on love and delight.
More event than play, bobrauschenbergamerica walks between theater and mere spectacle, perhaps working 'the gap between art and life,' to quote Rauschenberg. It certainly succeeds as a performance equivalent of his work, and credit Hometown for a fine presentation. Yet each observer must decide if it provides an intellectually and emotionally satisfying American experience.