By: David de Young
TV Men, a nimbus production at Intermedia Arts (Saturday, May 10th, 2008)
TV Men - Publicity photo by Jon Behm
“Our reality is just a TV set / inside a TV set inside a TV set, with nobody watching /
but Sokrates / who changed / the channel in 399 B.C” – Anne Carson.
TV Men, the latest production by nimbus and directed by nimbus co-artistic director Josh Cragun, is loosely inspired by a series of poems by Canadian poet Anne Carson. Given its inspiration by a poet extremely protective of her private life, it’s ironic perhaps – or perhaps not - that the play is billed as a commentary on celebrity. Cragun’s director’s notes suggest that TV Men is “about the people that society has chosen, collectively to elevate to larger than life levels, to view publicly, to talk about.” Though TV People might be more accurate a title for the play as three of the seven featured characters (and three of six actors) are women, TV Men certainly has a better ring to it and keeps the tie back to Carson’s original epithet.
In TV Men’s episodic two-hour run, we meet incarnations of Catherine the Great, Vita Sackville-West, Tupac Amaru II, William Booth, Salome, Langston Hughes and Icarus, and we get a series of short scenes based around actual history. Intentional or not, the production runs the exact same length as a prime time television program, and ultimately, the play explores the question, “What if?” around the public persona of the characters, asking in part, “what if these historical figures were held up to the modern media spotlight?” That examination produces sometimes amusing, frequently telling results.
The play has a little bit of everything. It features a “dance of the seven veils” by Ariel Pinkerton as Salome, a clash with a TV evangelist by Jeremy Wendt as William Booth, the father of the Salvation Army, and stilt-walking by Kari Hammer as Icarus. Also appearing are Caitlin Hammel as Catherine The Great and Ernest Briggs as Tupac Amaru II, Peruvian hero of the 18th Century. The show, billed as a multi-media production incorporates recorded audio and video as well as live-video shot by a hand held camera. As events unfold onstage, images are presented on both the big screen behind the actors and on stacks of smaller TVs at each side of the stage.
A serious and at times even heavy production (don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with all the characters coming into the production, you will be brought up to speed), there are still enough laughs to keep you on your toes. But this is far from a comedy. The fact that it’s such an ambitious undertaking is both its strength and its weakness. Sometimes the play sets its own bar so high it misses the mark, but at the same time, less lofty goals might not have allowed it to soar as it does in a section like the one that revolves around the poet Langston Hughes, played by Mitchell Frazier. Coupled with period photos and fictionalized video content, it’s a stark reminder of the extent of racism and anti-communist persecution in this country just 50 years ago.
For the most part, TV Men hits its mark. The script is good for being as fresh as it is, and it appears to have benefited from the organic way in which Cragun and the actors contributed to it over the past several months. The overall pacing of the show is spot on, the acting is consistent, and the occasional rough spots in no way interfered with my ability to enjoy the show. In fact, because there’s so much to take in at one sitting, I was actually left wishing I could see the show again. But if you don’t focus too hard on trying to get it all at once, it does seem to be the kind of show that sinks in more and more in the days after you’ve left the theater.
TV Men runs through May 25th at Intermedia Arts. Tickets are available online here. There’s a special PWYC performance on Monday, May 19th.
Location Info:
Intermedia Arts
Artist Info: nimbus theatre
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