"Rainbow Family of the Serendipitous Now" or "The Orpheus Project"

!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!

“Rainbow Family of the Serendipitous Now”

or

“The Orpheus Project”

by

the St. Idiot Collective

Performance on August 16, 2007

Written by Adrienne Dawes

Directed by Jeffery Mills

Sound Design: Jason Newman

Scenic Design: Chase Staggs

Lighting Design: Natalie George

Costume Design: Leigh Fisher

Production Mgr: Dani Pruitt

Stage Mgr: Sean Jenkins

Asst. Stage Mgr: Jess Akin

While the audience takes its seats, “Don’t Pass Me By”, one of the few Beatles songs written and sung by Ringo Starr plays on the PA system. Normally this would be taken as light irony as this semi-country song is probably the worst number the Beatles ever produced. But unfortunately “Don’t Pass Me By” sets the stage for an abysmally weak production by a normally talented group.

This awkwardly and not fun titled play (with innapropriate references to the Greek myth of Orpheus) from the St. Idiot Collective, is clearly an idea in search of a play. I think. I’ve spent the past few days trying to figure it out, but have finally given up. At best, it’s simply a treatment, and a very poor one at that.

What we got is a hippyish emperor with no clothes. I don’t care how pretentious you are about your play, I’m calling you out: this hour and twenty minute thing had no substance; it was just naked. And not in a good way, mind you!

The pre-show, while the audience enters and sits, is more than just a few songs played on speakers. On stage right and near the seating entrance is a small elevated platform. Kudos to Chase Staggs for doing a very good job on this, one of the three small sets of the whole production. The six-foot high platform is adorned with various items, including a few digital clocks blinking 12:00, topped by a few tasteful practical lights and sports a couple of very nasty looking spikes (not used in the play).

Kristin Malko, who plays Time according to the program, stands on the small platform. Dressed in white wedding dress and enormously pregnant, she stands in a trance and rotates clockwork-like to the music.

The production starts formally with an all-American young man, Tex (played by Brent Werzner), making a speech directly to the audience. He tells us that the time is somewhere in the sixties or early seventies, and he’s heading out to California where he wants to see all the cool and far-out stuff he heard of on TV. It’s all very on-the-nose background information, so you’d suppose it’s essential to the story as the writer (Adrienne Dawes) included this speech instead of having these vital details crop up as characters interact.

But you’d be wrong. There’s nothing in this introductory speech that’s relevant at all. And the director, Jeffery Mills, makes a major boo-boo by not nixing this speech altogether. But don’t give him much grief over this error as it’s nothing compared to the rest of Mills’ short-comings in this production.

Straight from this bizarrely on-the-nose speech we follow Tex and see the rest of the cast running around quickly. He bumps into Shorty Shea (Christopher Shea) who fills us in with even more background information. It’s another amateurishly on-the-nose conversation telling us that hippies live on this ranch. Oh yeah, he tells us not once, but three times that the girl hippies are all witches. Important? nah. Yet another detail that has no relevance whatsoever later on.

After a slightly provocative dance with junior-high drill team choreography (performed by Jenny Larson, Adriene Mishler, and Odile Nicole), Tex joins the hippies. Let’s meet them!

The followers are all conveniently named after a color, corresponding to their unimaginatively simple costumes (designed by Leigh Fisher). These characters--cough cough. Pardon me. I shouldn’t use that term as none are fleshed out enough to really deserve to be called characters, so I’ll call them “colors.” This represents the lack of depth nicely.

Uh, these “colors” are played enthusiastically enough (except for Clem/Yellow played by Adam Sorenson--clearly hired for his guitar playing in this opening hippie scene instead of his acting ability). But their level of commitment is at best only 80%, which is achieved only periodically by Jenny Larson (Sadie/Violet). The other people playing the colored hippies are lucky to be at 60% commitment.

But even with this low level of commitment, it’s a shame that none of them could think of interesting tacts to take. Except for the obviously gay Pink hippie (played by David Higgins), there was little to distinguish them from each other than the color of their clothing. And when Tex becomes one of them, transforming into Orange, he too loses any definition. And we loose a protagonist as his character completely fades into just another color.

The leader of the hippies, Father, is performed by Robert Pierson. He tries to channel Wulf Zendik, but has less than one-tenth the charisma and none of the intellectual substance. The script does give him a bit of babbly gibberish, but not enough to make an effective statement either for or against this type of charismatic cult leader.

That said, I have to admit that Pierson’s presence was sorely missed when his character disappears just past half-way through the production. Compared to the rest of the crew, he really did stand out.

During an acid trip by the hippies, Father takes it upon himself to abandon his colorful children to find his mother. And who is she? why it’s that woman in white who’s been standing over to the right since the pre-show: Time. Duh!

I must quickly digress a bit and compliment Father’s exit. The reverse birth was a cheap bit, but it still looked very nice. Good job on being effectively frugal, Staggs and Natalie George (lighting design)!

Despite being warned not to follow their Father, they go ahead and follow them anyway. Gee, Dad, don’t you think that warnings given to people in the middle of an acid trip might not carry much weight? Sigh. And into the birth canal everyone goes, with much screaming and running around, yawn.

From here on, the production ostensibly takes place in hell, but I can only deduce that from the sub-title. This consists of mostly following the colorful hippies as they run and dance to ridiculously loud music and sound effects. This mundane and tediously long section has a brief respite by the reappearance of Christopher Shea as a zombie biker with a taste for Green, the “cute one.” He does a passable job, but fails to become really gross, excessive, funny, or even interesting. It’s just in comparison with the rest of this section does he stand out.

Finally we catch up to Father as he knocks on Time’s door. He has a conversation with Miss Time--nah, I’m pulling your leg; it’s just babble. However, Father fails to use his knife, presumably because he can’t get in. But since there isn’t even a visible door, his inability to ingress must simply be taken on faith.

By this time the colorful group catches up with father, having lost a couple (pink and yellow, the most interesting ones as they are the only with tag-lines. Pink is gay and yellow is scrambled!) on their journey. Father hands three of them his knife to finish the job, inexplicably not including Blue in the murder conspiracy.

So after coaxing the pregnant Time off her platform the three remaining colors kill her.

The End.

So that’s the story. Really! Yup, a guy joins some hippies, they track their leader into hell where they kill Time, the end. That’s it! And that’s the crux of the problem: this is NOT A PLAY! At best, it’s just a slice-of-life story of a fantastical nature. But the slice is not an interesting one, it does not reveal much about the nature of anything I can think of, nor does it have any pleasing aspects. The fantastic aspects are few, far-between, unnecessary, and boring. Sigh.

No arc. No characters. No metaphors. No irony. Not even nihilistic references, so the philosophy of nothing doesn’t even enter the picture.

Now I could sit here and type about what a waste of time that Dawes wrote, but I can’t lay all the blame on her.

By far the greater guilty party is Mills who agreed to direct this mock of a play and the St. Idiot Collective for not insisting on higher quality writing. This, firmly, is where the culpability lies.

Writers love their writings like mothers love their children, unconditionally and blindly. But the production should have the dispassion of distance, the ability to say, “No,” to a poor work. “If we can’t get a good play, we won’t do one at all.” If production companies in Austin would simply adopt this slogan, it would instantly raise the level of live theater an order of magnitude.

But hey, Jeffery, you’re not out of the woods yet! You just started your crime spree by using Dawes’ script. While choosing a bad play is the worst thing a director can do, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out other excruciating problems with your directing.

The blocking was about the level of a college freshman/sophomore. For the most part, the actors moved to a spot, did their stuff, and then faded back as another actor did their thing. There was very little simultaneity. And even though it would have made sense (and been more visually interesting) for some of the actors, especially Father, to move around maniacally, you had them lock into their places. Please give the audience a break. If you’re limiting the actors’ movements, at least give us more to look at (better sets, multiple things happening at once, etc.).

Speaking of movement, the dancing was nice. But again, very amateurish. For help, just watch Milos Forman’s amazing adaptation of “Hair” (which this play obviously aspires to--very odd as the live theatrical version is pretty damn boring). And while you’re watching this, note how the actors, even Treat Williams, really REALLY will do anything for their performances. That is commitment. And if you’re going to do that script, nothing short of 100% commitment from the actors can possibly make it worth watching.

But if the actors give that much, you had better have something for them to do. And the truth is, Jeffery Mills, you don’t. Limp ideas come forth about once every ten minutes in this production. So by the time one comes out, the audience is so desperate the say to themselves, “Wow, those sneaking silhouettes looks really cool.” But the truth is, it looks cool only in comparison to the dribble that they’ve been looking at for a while.

The staging was pretty much the same: no creativity, very little effort, and predictable. I could tell when the actors were going to crossover to the other side. You have an enormous stage, why not use it?

Lighting? it was passable for the most part. Good moments were the birth canal and a nice bit where the colored hippies had colored head lights. George did a fair job of simple and predictable lighting.

Now all these things that I mentioned above just made for a bad production. While it’s a drag to waste your time sitting around through these things, it’s just that: a drag. The next part is truly a problem: sound.

The well-placed and well-made sound effects and music covered a great many ills: poor acting, idiotic writing, novice directing, and simple dancing. But the music was so intrusive that I frequently could not hear the actors, and at the mid-point I had to get up and leave during the play to get earplugs! Yes, the music and sound effects were that loud. And now, several hours later, my ears are still ringing.

And more so about sound. Rarely does mixing live music with pre-recorded music work. This production is a clear example of this maxim. I would suggest all the sound be done live, either by a live band or by performers off-stage. Done well it would mesh and enhance the hippyish ways of the main characters. A little tasteful reverb can be added as you did with Time’s voice, but even that can be simulated without over-amplification.

Technically, the performance was fine. I didn’t notice any missed cues or tech errors (other than the volume as noted before) at all. Good job to the managers!

Finally, I realized that there is an unintended irony to “Don’t Pass Me By.” Despite the song’s plead, you most definitely should pass by this play. Do not stop and look, just go, go, go!