Burnt Umber

BURNT UMBER
I wasn’t quite sure what world we were in here. Genre-wise or content-wise. We began with Clown .. on an empty stage. One of the clowns was so frightened of the audience, and so new to this whole concept of being in front of one, that she retreated. When she returned, she was so frightened she couldn’t peel herself off the wall without the counsel and encouragement of her more feisty, forward partner. Which was fun. And quite beautiful. The whole entrance bit was nice. And these two young women were beautiful to watch.

Then suddenly we’re in rush hour (I think), pushing around a mound of melted electronic gadgets and bits of office paraphernalia (which quite surprisingly and expertly breaks apart on cue later in the show). Then we arrive at an office and we’re in two separate cubicles (I think) and these two friends who needed and trusted each other so much on their arrival moments ago, now apparently don’t know each other. Or maybe they’re playing a bunch of different characters. I don’t know.

I’m not sure who these characters were, or why, after the opening beats, they were wearing red noses. How can a character, who would have us believe that she believes she can hear her friend through the plug-end of a phone line, be smart enough to quote Shakespeare accurately and at exactly the right moment in the show? Once you’ve put that red nose on you’ve pretty much made a contract with innocence and the single-minded pursuit of the absurd. I don’t care how smart a Clown is .. even if it can memorize a couple lines of iambic pentameter, it has got to mis-use the language. Bottom’s “I have an exposition of sleep come over me” springs instantly to mind.

The clowns who arrived at the top of the show weren’t the people speaking Shakespeare. Or the secretaries shouting at each other over the mound. So … as I said, I’m not quite sure what, or who, I was watching. The child laughing at the chaos of the cascading rubber bands was a welcome relief though, and a sign that there was fun in this universe, even if it wasn’t a clown’s.