Foregoing just about everything, including traditional narrative, in favor of a rich blend of sights, sounds, and metaphors, The Black Rider is not so much theatre as it is an experience. The cast sings and makes noise, moves and contorts, exhibits mannerisms and styles with a surreal, even Dadaist (non)sensibility. They interact with surroundings that imply locations, but exist more as dream-states. Watching it all unfold is, at the best moments, like getting drunk, but without the unpleasant effects of a hangover waiting at the show’s end.
The Lone Weakness
Only the dance elements fail to fully engage the imagination in the way of the experiences‚ lights, music and words. While most display a measure of grace, others are like those annoying avant-garde performances with no discernible purpose or meaning to redeem the seemingly arbitrary, and not always pretty, movements. And not all the performers are successful in making the unrealistic and bizarre compelling. In the role of Wilhelm’s bride-to-be Katchen, Mary Margaret O‚Hara offers bewildered vocals without wonder, while mezzo-soprano Sona Cerveza hits or misses, depending on her role. But who will notice when the rest of the cast, topped out by Nigel Richards and Matt McGrath, dazzles with vocal dexterity and unquestionably strong presences on the stage?
To be sure, The Black Rider is a puff of phantasmagoria. The piece doesn’t present drama to wrench hearts out from chest cavities; the moral that making deals with the Devil is a Bad Thing is emotionally incidental; and the Dadaist/surrealistic influences, so safely held close to the bosom of Real Art, lacks rebellion. But still, what a delightful, magical puff it is, a deliriously sensual piece that shows why the words “performance” and “art” are so justly married together.
The Black Rider: music and lyrics by Tom Waits. Text by William S. Burroughs. Direction, set, and lighting by Robert Wilson. Starring Vance Avery, Sona Cervena, Virenia Lind, Joan Mankin, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Robert Parsons, Nigel Richards, Dean Robinson, Gabriella Santinelli, Richard Strange, Monika Tahal, Jake Thornton, and John Vickery. Playing at the Ahmanson Theatre through June 11. For more information, visit www.ahmansontheatre.com.