New Work Russian Roulette

NOW Festival Program 3. REDCAT. 8/4/06.

The third installment of the REDCAT NOW Festival rather effectively demonstrated that new work can be a great or a terrible experience.

The first piece, "Civil War Reinactment" by Matt Wardell, was a delightful little piece with wind-up music boxes and plastic cups. It was clever and entertaining, and it got its point across succinctly.

The second piece, however, was miserable. "Orpheus Crawling" by Juli Crockett was a reimagining of the Orpheus myth in dance and music, but it seemed to miss the point of the traditional Orpheus myth and failed to recreate it in a meaningful way. For some reason, Orpheus was dressed like Indiana Jones and one of the characters, the Furies, don't even appear in the traditional Orpheus myth. The piece failed to communicate ideas about art or the world in any coherent or visually interesting way.

In contrast, John Fleck's "Johnnie's Got a Gun" was both intelligent and entertaining. It was a meditation on patriotism and patriarchy through personal stories about an abusive and alcoholic father (George). The whole thing was hilarious and Fleck did a wonderful job navigating the emotions of the piece from whimsical to poingnant. I loved the whole thing very much, and I would gladly have watched it again, if that hadn't required sitting through "Orpheus Crawling" again.