Monday, June 8, 2009

Theater review: Howl

By Gina Robertson of John Garcia's The Column

Abstract performance art like this is a lot like strolling through an art gallery or a museum without ever pausing before any piece of art long enough to understand it. Each line of Allen Ginsberg's famous Howl (now playing at the Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth) is delivered with emotional emphasis like a series of independent images with a shared theme. Each line or series of lines conveys no more than a moment's reflection before the next image appears to convey some other emotional landscape or portrait. Mostly in colors of anger and despair. A woman seated near me began whimpering during the holy, holy, holy sequence, and I was distracted for a while wondering whether it was laughter or weeping she struggled to suppress. Finally she gasped out loud, "Okay, life sucks, but do we have to wallow in it?!"

Indeed. The beat poets of the 40's and 50's were fond of their misery and created a body of work from wallowing in it. No light-hearted romantic sonnet on a summer's day for them, unless it was the faint memory of such contrasted with the swallowing winter emptiness of the present moment. Such is Howl. Even after studying it in college, reading it carefully and thoroughly many times, and now having seen it interpreted on stage, I still can't tell you what this poem is about. I can tell you the feelings but not the meaning, and perhaps that is the point.

This ensemble cast directed by Johnny Simons commit themselves admirably to the difficult task of interpreting this work visually. There are no props or costumes, just a diverse group of people coming together to taste the delicious words Allen Ginsberg was jailed for 50 years ago. The cast embrace the words, absorbing them, and then they fling them out in a rhythmic pattern flow that hypnotizes where it does not enlighten. Remember that game you play when you're a kid when you repeat a word over and over out loud until it loses all meaning and becomes nothing more than an auditory pattern of syllables? The same thing happens in this play (Molock, Molock, Molock, Molock—I have no idea what it is, but it makes a nice pattern when you say it over and over, especially in a very angry voice). The meaning is lost in the rhythmic chanting of the poetry. All you're left with is what the poet felt, not what he meant or why he felt this way. For a writer like me who struggles to build word structures that convey as much of my meaning as my feeling, this is an interesting approach to the art.

Certain members of the ensemble stand out as particularly animated in their performance. Paul Logsdon is one; he captivates the stage at times with his expressive delivery. Yvonne Duque does as well and appears very comfortable in this performance. Several of her lines convey irony matched by her tone and face, earning a chuckle from the audience.

Other performers stumble over the lines, which is more of a problem in reciting poetry than when delivering dialogue. For this kind of work, precision is very important for maximum effect, especially when lines are delivered in unison by two or more performers. There is a noticeable amount of disconnect as actors trip over the words or pause to remember the next line. The lead, Grover Coulson, speaks with a lisp that makes it even more crucial for him to work on pronunciation and take care to deliver the words slowly and precisely.

In general, I find it hard to appreciate abstraction in any art form, so for the most part this piece goes over my head. It is, to me, a bit like watching a child's exaggerated emotional expression—you have no idea what she's so upset about but you know it must not be quite as serious as she's making it out to be. Without understanding the meaning or the source of these emotions, I'm unable to share them, which leaves a large gap between me and the performance.

One exceptional sequence did present a bridge, however, and the performance was able to reach inside me for a few moments. The men had been on stage shouting and moaning and wailing (howling?) their rage and despair while the women watched from a bench nearby. Their emotions were spent after a while, and they collapsed to the stage, completely drained. Dead, perhaps. This prompts the ladies to rise and come to them, resurrecting them with comfort and love, and the men cling to their legs gratefully like lost, terrified little children while the women speak of the weight and beauty of love. This had meaning for me, and so I felt it. I saw tears on the cheeks of one of the actresses, Katie Morrell, and for a moment I connected with her and almost cried myself.

Due to the adult subject matter and language used in the poem, the theater cautions that the play is not appropriate for young children.

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