T.E.O.R.A.M.A.T
Polish troupe, TR Warszawa’s brand of Theatre of Images recently haunted UCLA’s vast Freud stage, and the stage pictures still resonate as stark outlines in the mind. Taking a cue from the source material, Pasolini’s 1968 “Teorema,” director Grzegorz Jarzyna’s spare narrative posits what happens to a well-ordered family when it admits a Guest (Sebastian Pawlak) into its inner circle. The resulting “la ronde” presents a painterly dance of destruction as one family member after another succumbs to the Guest’s seductive force. The concept, tedium, and inexorability of time pushes the plotline along as one day fades into another with seeming banality that is only punctuated by the Guest’s attentions.
The piece begins with the faux interview of Paolo, the man we presume to be the central character. Performers planted in the audience ask him anxious questions about the role of television and the meaning of life. Our impression is of an overly self-assured, pampered, second-generation corporate president who has no experience with suffering. It is not hard to imagine that, in this piece, we will soon find his come-uppance.
We transition to a slick, expansive home inhabited by Paolo’s sleek, self-assured wife, Lucia (Danuta Stenka) and two growing children (Katarzyna Warnke and Jan Dravnel). Jarzyna’s hand is evident as the action progresses with a series of repetitive movements that illustrate the ritualistic nature of their lives. In an ever-tightening circle, the predictability of it all contrasts with the mounting violence of each of the Guest’s encounters. Any attempt to find meaning in the Guest’s behavior is foiled when he makes the pronouncement, “Nothing has interested me at all.” His destruction of the others has been methodical, inevitable, complete.
Jarzyna is aided in creating his atmospheric production in continuing collaborations with several artists, beginning with the magnificently conceived setting by Magdalena Maciejewska. Against the blonde-on-blonde, moderne background, light (designed by Jacqueline Sobiszewski) streams into the rooms, while simple set pieces denote a succession of locations in the house as the story progresses from the triviality of an evening meal to the systematic behavior of abuse. Even the lighting of a cigarette results in a conflagration as the stage fills with smoke. Jacek Grudzien’s original, expressive music in tandem with Piotr Dominski’s sound design (as well as compositions) enhances a sense of mounting menace.
As the play progresses, we are fascinated by projections, especially a series of birds fluttering onto a wire, that asks us to find meaning in such disparate acts as peeing on an artwork, followed by distortions in a mirror or the tableau of the maid, Emilia (Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak), on her knees in prayer. But each sequence, each image, exists as if in a gallery; separate and available for individual contemplation. The isolation renders the cumulative effect a fascinating, if bloodless meditation on human relationships.
T.E.O.R.A.M.A.T. continues UCLA Live’s Eighth International Theatre Festival at the Freud Playhouse on the UCLA Campus, Westwood 90024. It performed on November 18th and 19th 2009. For information on the remaining productions phone (310) 825-2101 or www.UCLAlive.org.