Turning a Corner

I was flattered that the New York Times sent a theater critic to review Hey Girl! by the Italian stage auteur Romeo Castelucci. Although Peak Performances has offered numerous other theater events, none has ever received a critique from the cultural paper of record. The Star Ledger on the other hand has been a loyal follower of our work, providing insightful remarks about the varied artists on the Kasser stage. Hard to imagine writing about a stage work that is essentially visual theater – meaning that there is little conventional text or statements by performers to guide a patron into the world unfolding before one’s eyes – without at least one illustration. No pictures in that New York Times’ review. While, on the other hand, the Star Ledger not only produced a penetrating summary with some keen insight but also offered a picture! The Times writer – apparently a gentle soul with considerable theater chops delved into Hey Girl! in search of a story, perhaps even a plot and, in fact found one. One can’t say whether the analysis had much to do with Romeo’s intentions, but then “post dramatic’ theater is not about playwrights anyway. The power of the word to guide an audience and create catharsis has no place in 21st century Theater – at least not in Romeo’s mind. Having done what the 20th century critic often does – describes what he sees, the Times writer lamented that Romeo’s vision of womanhood was bleak and unredeemable. Womanhood isn’t always about oppression, he said, they have done more and aren’t merely victims. I can’t say whether Romeo feels that way, but I wonder about Tennessee Williams’ character Blanche DuBois and would the Times have said the same thing about A Streetcar Named Desire. Hey, Tennessee, couldn’t you find a better way of ending your tragedy??

Audiences for Hey Girl! were outstanding – yes, we think about marketing and audience development daily. A cross section of folks turned up. Three buses from Manhattan on Saturday. Two on Sunday. Practically every seat in house taken packed to the rafters with adventuresome New Jerseyeans from all over the state! And then the conoscenti: Matthew Barney, Chuck Mee, Marianne Weems, Susan Marshall and staggering assortment of New York theater Workshoppers and the venerable stage director Robert Woodruff – who hugged me and said: “I don’t often hug producers!”


Peak Performance is Turning a Corner
Friday night included a woman and her daughter. For reasons that remain mysterious, the mom was sitting in the balcony and the daughter in the orchestra near the stage. At the conclusion of a faux bludgeoning scene with pillows involving 35 men and one girl, the mom decided her daughter should not stay for the rest of the “show”. The mom drafted our house manager to rescue the girl and to creep into the theater (‘cause the house manager was wearing black) and spirit her daughter away!!! Once confronted with mom’s edict, the girl refused to leave and sent her older friend seated next to her to pass the new to her mom – “No way!” What was that helicopter mom seeing that she thought might frighten her daughter? Or was it the other way around, what frightened the mom into thinking her girl would be traumatized. Nothing that Romeo created, I can assure you...hey girl!

Cheaps seats do the trick – the way of the future for the performing arts. What is it about the $15 that frees the mind? Lowers those defenses? Provides a person with strength of character to learn to fly? Paying three or four times that amount just possibly closes out the senses. Speaking of which, much has been made of Romeo’s Visual theatre. I’ve even described his work as post-Wilson. Yet, the more I watch, I find that his theater is best left free of labels or, if one must categorize, let’s call his work ‘Theatre of the Subconscious’.