Dito van Reigersberg,
James Sugg and Quinn Bauriedel in Chekhov
Lizardbrain
The Pig
Iron Theatre Company’s
Chekhov Lizardbrain
Participant of Under The Radar Festival
2010
January 6 – January 17, 2010
Reviewed by Justin D. Quackenbush
It’s January in
New York. Post-holiday blues and seasonal
affective disorder are in full swing, offering
a veritable panoply of raw emotion. Yes,
for some, a new year, a new decade and a
subscription to “O” Magazine
may yield a catalyst for adopting a healthy
new attitude. Conversely though, many find
their outlook more congruent with the weather:
frosty, dismal.
Luckily, for theatregoers
of the latter persuasion, there remains
reason to celebrate. Now in it’s sixth
year, the Under The Radar Festival
offers a diverse collection of new theatre
from around the world that is exciting,
independent and experimental. The Festival
presents a collection of work created by
troupes, devoted and disgruntled with the
existing state of theatre, who are seeking
to deviate from the dreck that plagues many
of our commercial stages.
The Pig Iron Theatre Company’s
sold-out offering: Chekhov Lizardbrain,
proves to be a ferocious rumble in the bowels
of contemporary theatre. It’s a dazzling
and fearless anomaly that defies convention
and teases the mind. Rarely, does an entire
piece work this well. The Pig Iron clan,
refreshingly exempt from employing smoke
and mirrors of any kind, has mastered theatre
as a fine art. It is succinct in action,
direction and design. Indeed, no facet of
this gem has been left unpolished.
Ultimately, Chekhov
Lizardbrain is a Weimar-esque exploration
of the liminality of human consciousness,
which slightly borrows plot from Anton Chekhov’s
Three Sisters and wraps it in a
shroud of twenty-first-century psychology.
Pig Iron sites American neuroscientist Paul
D. MacLean’s theory of the triune
brain as the co-inspiration, which postulates
that the human brain is comprised of three
parts: neocortex, limbic and reptilian.
It is this “lizard” brain that
controls instinctual survival behaviors
and autonomic function.
The gifted James Sugg
hypnotically morphs between Dimitri, the
autistic protagonist and Chekhov Lizardbrain,
his sort of Siamese-ego that’s lodged
firmly in the id. Throughout the evening’s
cirque-noir proceedings, Dimitri’s
mind schisms between reality and sensory-infused
fiction of painful memories with Chekhov
Lizardbrain on standby as Emcee.
Dimitri and Chekhov Lizardbrain
recall choice interactions with three brothers
from his childhood, Sascha (Chad Lindsey),
Nicholas (Dito van Reigersberg) and Peter
(Quinn Bauriedel). Via quirky variations
on a scene, we learn that after their mother’s
death the brothers have quibbled over placing
the house on the market and Dimitri’s
interest in it has subjected him to witnessing
their disagreements.
It is at once comedic
and melancholic watching Dimitri struggle
to make sense of the feud swirling about
him. In one vignette, Sascha, Nicholas and
Peter strut about in top hats and union-suits
and expertly reduce Chekhovian dialogue
to pantomime, dissolving any existing conflict
into a series of elegant one-liners. In
the following, they are literally three
brothers in Oswego, NY who are engaged in
a heated debate over the value of their
shared estate. The duality therein is a
fascinating snapshot of the nuances of individual
perception.
The quartets jubilant
delivery is well steeped in Anna Kiraly’s
Samovar of a playing space. Lurking behind
a red velvet curtain is a phosphorescent
cave where the actors dance about in an
implied game of cerebral hide and seek.
Extending from this is a circular thrust
of polished stanchions representing a psychological
prophylactic for Dimitri, everything outside
of which –yes including the audience-
has the potential to inform his experience.
The simple, effective
lighting design by James Clotfelter features
dozens of red and white bulbs suspended
by a haphazard tangle of white cords, vaguely
reminiscent of the sulci and gyri of the
cerebral cortex. The aesthetic is complimented
by the haunting murmurings of Nick Kourtides
sound design.
While celebrating its
own obscurities and non-linear structure,
Chekhov Lizardbrain’s
text is astonishingly clean and precise.
It makes no attempt to sacrifice its integrity
for the audience’s comfort. It is
an invitation to examine our own consciousness
and suggests that the mind, no matter what
it’s affliction, possesses the troubling
inclination for humankind to become lost
in the cavern of our own thoughts until
someone, something or perhaps even our own
imagination comes to rescue us.
* * *
The Pig Iron Theatre Company has been creating
original theatre in Philadelphia, PA since
1995. Their OBIE award winning work has
been seen internationally at Edinburgh Fringe,
throughout Europe and South America. For
information on future productions visit
www.pigiron.org
This production of Chekhov
Lizardbrain was performed at the CSV
Cultural Arts Center at 107 Suffolk Street
(between Delancey and Rivington). It is
a partner venue for the The Under The Radar
Festival.
Under The Radar is produced
by The Association of Performing Arts Presenters
in tandem with The Public Theatre. For more
information visit www.undertheradarfestival.com
