Swerve

A Review by Patrick Shannon, III

Director Lane Savadove crashed R. J. Tsarov's play Swerve into a mountain of his own ego-maniacal wreckage.

Robert J. Tsarov

I've read the script three times. It seems simple enough, but that Tsarovian vision keeps it from being simple in its end result.  No matter what, Swerve, in keeping with his style is like a piece of music; like a piano sonata of Beethoven, Mozart, or Scarlatti.  Which means that like such music, they are not meant to be totally understood, but felt, heard as a new kind of emotional experience that leaves each member of the audience with his own mental and psychological interpretation of its meaning.  Why like a piano sonata?  Because they each have the sonata structural form: an exposition in which two or more themes are stated; development in which one of more themes are elaborated and developed often in different keys (or ideas); and recapitulation, in which both or all major themes are again given in the original key (or idea), with certain modifications followed by a concluding coda (ending).  This is as close as I can get to a definition of the structure of a Tsarovian drama.

And what this means is that his dramas are like musical compositions of words, meant to be played on one piano in a small concern hall or room.  They are like chamber music.

Better heard and felt in a small setting, an intimate room or chamber, not a football stadium.  What they do not lend themselves to is a performance in a giant space with bad acoustics.  And not being exaggerated and recreated into an overwrought symphony or score of ideas employing every known musical instrument and trick in the composer's or conductor's imagination.  Do that to a play by R. J. Tsarov and you lose the intimate and stunning power of his work.

Direct it as it was written and you bring an audience into the mesmerizing subtleties of his written words.  The audience gets the full concentrated effort of his concept and is emotionally moved, shocked, exhilarated, amazed, and satisfied with the coda of climax of the work, even if the ending is perhaps not quite resolved, but remains hanging in the psyche, like the last chord, the last lingering note of a great piano sonata.

Well, that is not what happened in the recent Ego-Po Production presentation which was staged in the nearly football sized area of the TwiRoPa theatre space at 1544 Tchoupitoulas Street in the warehouse district of New Orleans.

R. J. Tsarov's unique talent, powerful vision, and astonishing dramatic psychological cutting edge plays are not in question here.  What is in question is Director Lane Savadove's over blown directorial concept and that of the Ego Po Productions staff members, assistant directors, and actors who are shown in the program to have aided in the creation of this pretentious farrago and a self-indulgent interpretation with additions that are not even suggested by the script.

I don't know how playwright R. J. Tsarov does it; but every play he writes is so original in concept that it leaves one breathless with awe at the pure theatricality of his work - at how they draw your attention with the uncontrollable effect of trying not to look at a terrible road accident as the policemen signals you to pass on, but you keep rubber necking at the wreck of human bodies and machines, secretly hoping that it will never happen to you, but still deeply horrified at the thought of actually seeing a mass of mangled bodies, pools of blood, and scattered body parts.  Horrified at the thought that maybe someone you know and perhaps love, is lying among all the expressway carnage. A symbol perhaps of Mr. Tsarov's unconscious tap into the National American mind-set, a mind set that glorifies wars, corporate greed, and a faux democracy that deceives and uses the ignorant sheep of the voting constituency.  In short, a culture without any real spiritual values, tolerance for others who might be different, and mostly Christian, a religious movement which I believe has degenerated into the curse of Western Culture.

Mr. Tsarov's unique plays keep coming, keep spinning out, complete with their elliptical moments, their nightmare images and non-stop scenes.

I've seen Trust Fund Babies; Tennessee Williams Speaks in Tongues, or the 3 1/2 Character Play; Love Sauce, and most recently, for this review, Swerve, his most disturbingly effective effort yet.

It was the quickest opening and closing night I ever attended.  When we arrived to review the show we were told it was not ready and that we should come back the next evening.  We did, and it was still not ready.  It was then I was made aware of one of the most painful experiences of my many years as a critic of the creative and performing arts.

Set design by Joseph C. Harris

The playing areas were meant to suggest a hospital environment.  (Which has nothing to do with the written script.)  There was no air conditioning and after the first 15 minutes of the play, the audience was so uncomfortably hot, some of them left, and most of them removed the silly hospital gowns they were asked to wear as they entered the playing area.

David Cuthbert the theater critic with the Times Picayune http://www.timespicayune.com/ , Jim Word, Jim Walpole, Al Shea with Steppin Out on PBS http://www.wyes.org/, and audience members in hospital gowns on opening night

The seating arrangement, to see these areas, was a high platform construction facing the stages.  Folding seats had been arranged in rows.  No one involved in the production seemed to be aware of the expression, "audience sight lines."  Only those in the two front rows could see the action which was staged so that one moment the actors were performing stage left, one moment stage right, and then all over the area, seated on beds behind an endless array of ecru curtains that were clumsily slid back, rattling and scraping on their wire-strung holders, to reveal more of the same, until the actors were directed to perform in a set resembling a bar at the far end of the warehouse.  Not only could the performers not be seen but the action was poorly paced; and definitely not helped by this staging.

To those in the audience who could see them, the actors appeared like small figures on a little television screen as the scenes were played out behind one set of curtains after another, each playing area done farther and farther back into the half-block long warehouse.

Chip Stelz

And speaking of television sets, there were two banks of about 60 or so of them stage left and stage right, and several others mounted high upon the warehouse support columns stretching into the far back areas of the huge room.

There was so much malfunctioning technical equipment, sliding curtains, and overly loud sound effects, that Mr. Tsarov's play was lost among the distracting clutter of electronic devices.  There were videos showing a sadistic bloody pornographic scene of a female having a paper punch make holes all over her body as she screamed in agony, videos showing the audience initially as we arrived and sat down and when we left, videos of scenes from an old film noir black and white movie staring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, videos of one of the characters of the play (the five year old boy mentioned in the script); but that night they were all played on the television screens to mostly missed cues.

The end of the play gives us a real car being driven into the audience its headlights blinding everyone.  Of course no one knew if that was the end of the play, because none of Director Lane Savadove's self-indulgent nonsense was written in the script. To quote a fine and well known local director, Perry Martin, "I've found that when the play appears to have happened without any director's obvious involvement, then its' a success." Well, this production has Ego Po/Lane Savadore and staff in obvious abundance as distracting excess of stage business became more excessive throughout the evening.

If it was Director Lane Savadores's intent to give the play a grand and epic effect, he was misguided. (He did the same thing in the highly touted John Guare play, Women and Water, performed in Loyola's Marquette Theater a few months ago.  It became a dull exercise in actors screaming their lines and had something to do with the American Civil War. Lots of sound and fury signifying nothing.  I wonder how Mr. Guare felt about that production?)

This production, Swerve, however was poorly envisioned by the director and his staff, and no matter how well intended was their approach, it failed miserably.  Swerve, as written, is a simple series of quick scenes with a total of seven characters and a minimal of set requirements, lighting effects, and props.

The plot involves a heist of some diamonds; and the possible murder of a five year old boy by way of a night time auto accident in a car driven by M the principal male character, who claims to have once been hit by a car when he was five years old.  There are repeated allusions to the auto accident and killing of the five year old boy, a decision as to which of the two main female characters were better qualified to deliver the goods to Hobz, descriptions of Hobz as a grotesque man by M, and as Victory says, "That's one way to put it. Another way is to say that he's the ugliest, most foul fuckin' thing to ever slither out of woman or beast...".  These two female characters are in question are: Gina who is some kind of a hair dresser with a penchant for "accidently drawing blood" when cutting hair or shaving her clients (she was performed with a sultry sexy evil touch by Veronica Russell), and Holly, who is initially and repeatedly concerned with the loss of her long golden locks of hair, constantly pulling at it and claiming to be losing it in chunks (played by the voluptuous Leah Loftin with an eye-candy yet earnest effect). There are reference to the hirsuite body of Hobz, who looks more like an hairy animal than a human being.  There is a much eating of steaks rare and bloody from free range and chemically pure cows and repeated comments about this subject.  (And we must not forget that huge gob of what appeared to be a bloody skinned thing from a David Cronenberg movie that is seen lumped on one of the hospital beds for only the Director knows what reason. Nor must we forget the moment when we see the character of Holly (Lea Loftin) encased in a large clear upright plastic box.)  We eventually also see her mostly naked and quite beautiful body neatly covered with dozens of tiny round band aids.  Now juggle all of this together and turn them into a strange psychologically connected plot and you get an idea of a drama by R. J. Tsarov.  A drama in which the words create the magic and the music, not the sets, costumes, and props, nor the staging as done in this production.

"Wild Bill" Dykes and Chip Stelz

The three male characters are:  M, a tormented hypochondriac with bad dreams (played with great style by Bill Dykes); Victory, his partner in crime (played with suave intensity by Bob Pavlovitch, and Hobz, the buyer of the stolen goods and a pornographic film producer/hemophiliac (played by Chip Stelz who managed to create a very monstrous role by doing little but sitting in front of the wall of televison monitors wearing nothing but a baggy white diaper).  These excellent and seasoned actors somehow managed to almost capture the creepiness and power of playwright Tsarov's foray into the subconscious found in his nightmarish quick skit play that was full of variations and developments and repetitions of the varied themes.  And that took some talent in view of the overwrought not-ready opening night menagerie of exaggerated electronics, and well-intended but totally unnecessary staging.

Lane Savadove and Leah Loftin

The other three characters in this plot are the female roles: two moll-doll hustler-ettes - Holly played by the voluptuous (and not afraid to show it all) Leah Loftin; Gina, a black Gothic costumed character who oozed evil, sadism, and an almost Ann Rice vision (not the playwright's intent I believe) and played by Veronica Russell who was very compelling in her role - and a smaller female role, Nurse, described as "having big meaty arms" and which was effectively performed by Sharon London.

The role of the five year old boy was not meant to be seen on stage except as a bloody dead body wrapped in a blanket, but he became one of the videos played over and over again in scenes of a young boy running and having fun.  We don't know for sure if this boy was actually hit and killed or whether it was simply a horrified memory in principal male character, M.'s sick mind.

A simpler touch rather than an overwrought, hysterical attempt to present this play would have really worked.  Too bad we got the extreme opposite:  a Fellini-esque foray into a circus of theatrical ideas better suited perhaps to the production of a play by the Belgium playwright Michele de Ghelderode (his Christopher Columbus, or Lazarus comes to mind), than a work of the differently talented R. J. Tsarov.

I'd say, go see this play if you can, especially if the air conditioning system is working and if you enjoy the spectacle of hi-tech appliances, a real old automobile on stage, and a circus-like ambiance.  But not, if you want to experience the truly potent effect of an R. J. Tsarov play.

Great effort went into this production and the entire staff must be complimented for that, even though it was all to no good effect.

Director Lane Savadove and Associate Director Erica Centurian did their best and nearly died in the effort I was told, along with Assistant Director Audrey Bales.  John Harris did his best as Production Stage Manager, but it must have been like trying to control a galaxy of star systems.  Joseph C. Harris also did the set and lighting design, a big job indeed in this production.  Stewart McKinsey did the original sound and music compositions.  Kimberly Peeler did the video design.  The props were handled by Kerry Cahill, and the costume assistants were Holly Cassard and Whitney Bryan.  I congratulate all of you on a huge job unnecessarily done.  I know it was not an easy effort for a highly touted event.

Robert J. Tsarove

Good work all.  I only hope the thousands of kinks have been cleared up by now.  I hope to see it again, unless I'm banned for all further EgoPo Productions http://www.egopo.org/ productions as I was by the New Orleans Ballet Association for telling the truth about their first show of last season.