ART's lively American odyssey
Over the decades, the American Repertory Theatre has introduced its fair share of edgy, often somber, avant-garde productions. ``bobrauschenbergamerica" fits the first and last criteria, but it's an all-out hoot: a crazy-quilt celebration of the essence of America.
There's little attempt at a literal biography of the artist Robert Rauschenberg, who inspired the work, beyond the recurrent appearances of ``Bob's mom" (Kelly Maurer). She's a classic '40s housewife who, primly permed and wearing a shirtwaist she no doubt sewed herself (``I could arrange the paper patterns so close together on the fabric I didn't waste a bit"), narrates a series of family photos projected across a house facade painted like an American flag. That the pictures, hard to discern amid the stars and stripes, don't actually match her descriptions augurs the kind of odd displacements in store.
Like much of Rauschenberg's own work, the experience is a carefully constructed if seemingly laissez-faire pastiche. Charles L. Mee's allusive text -- cobbled from quotes by Rauschenberg, Walt Whitman, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and other creative rebels, plus the improv-based contributions of director Anne Bogart's SITI Company -- is an intentional hodgepodge: 43 scenes involving 10 characters (not counting a walk-on bagpiper).
What's never made clear -- and it doesn't need to be -- is what brings these disparate people to this particular picnic, which Bob's mom oversees like an indulgent den mother. The characters are interrelated, but the seemingly random juxtapositions could be a paean to pluralism or to the unpredictability of American life: ``Tie a string to something, and see where it takes you," a warm, disembodied voice intones at the outset. ``The biggest thing is don't worry about it. You're always gonna be moving somewhere, so don't worry about it."
That calming credo informs the work: If a certain scene starts to drag -- a rarity -- you've only to wait a bit for a fresh scenario. A lengthy disquisition on time, space, and Los Alamos by gay scientist Allen (Stephen Webber), for example, abruptly gives way to a lively square dance of astounding intricacy.
The delights come fast and furious: Allen's rendition of ``I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire," delivered in towel and shower cap; the romantic quester Susan (the luminous Ellen Lauren) discoursing on the difference between male and female emotive styles as she delicately tastes, then attacks a sheet cake; Phil the Trucker (Leon Ingulsrud) and his ``bathing beauty" girlfriend (Akiko Aizawa) enjoying a novel mode of slip 'n' slide; Allen's beloved, Carl (Barney O'Hanlon, the show's choreographer), engaging in an exuberant pas de deux with a pile of freshly laundered sheets; and, perhaps most winning, Phil's deadpan litany of third-grade-level chicken jokes.
As there's no effective comedy without an undercurrent of potential tragedy, there's an 11th-hour appearance by an interloper, whose mission is perhaps best left undivulged. In his moment in the spotlight, Tom Nelis is so riveting that the audience scarcely dares breathe. For the most part, though, the mood is playful.
In true ensemble tradition, many of the principals praised here will be replaced mid-run, after Sept. 21. All the more reason to rush to see the current configuration. You may well come away curious to catch the next round.
