Review Rundown: The One With Feist, The Singer

Just three reviews this week, but only because the Without Walls Diary got a stand alone post. Which means we did TEN CAPSULE REVIEWS this week. Which is a lot.

The three biggest cities in the United States all tag in this week with three very different shows. The last of which squeaked in thanks to guest contributor Martin Gimenez, who hit up a concert that Feist — yes, the singer — has kitted out as an immersive experience to some degree. That show is headed to Seattle this weekend and then Stanford, and it looks like it is possible to grab tickets tonight in LA.

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All The Mournful Voices — Invulnerable Nothings
$26; Brooklyn, New York; through April 30th

Judged by atmosphere alone, All The Mournful Voices is a triumph. Invulnerable Nothings have done wonders with an inconspicuous space in DUMBO, utilizing a sparing set and a few gaslit torches (set and lighting design is by Margot Mayer) in immersing a small audience into an 1865 tavern. Director C.C. Kellogg has cast an eerily mournful spell–it truly feels like death has joined us in the room.

The actors also impress, particularly Jake Robertson as a soldier haunted by unimaginable horrors. Robertson is startlingly committed and you feel, in this environmental staging (the actors could not be closer) his visceral trauma.

Unfortunately, the play itself is mostly cliches. The horrors of war and the despair of the returning soldier are fruitful topics, as is the continuing legacy of the Civil War on the American psyche. But playwright Matthew Gasda, mainly known for contemporary works about self-indulgent artists and media types, seems mainly interested in the concept of this bar as itself a kind of purgatory. It’s an overdone trope which renders the characters secondary to an idea, and not a particularly exciting one at that.

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– Joey Sims, New York City Correspondent

Multitudes — Feist
From $75; Los Angeles, LA 4/27; Seattle 4/30 & 5/1; Stanford 5/5–7

Rock concerts and immersive theatre are two modes of experience that could enhance each other greatly. Unfortunately, thanks to the prohibitive economic scale and infrastructure of the rock touring world, there are seldom examples of the worlds of immersive and rock colliding. In March of 2014, The XX created a now legendary series of concerts for 40 people at a time at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, and as far as I’m aware, the list ended there. Until now.

Canadian singer/songwriter Leslie Feist, known singularly as Feist, has developed Multitudes, a show that amazes the pop music fan and excites the immersive theatre junkie all in an hour long experience. Entering a backstage area of the Shrine Auditorium, we are greeted to intimate rings of chairs around a small circular stage, all while being serenaded by an amplified dot matrix printer spitting out set lists at the other side of the space. Crew members will hand you a set list if you loiter around that side of the space for too long, and then ask you take your seats, as Feist casually enters and grabs a guitar. While I could make a point by point explanation of how the various design elements are subsequently introduced and exploded, they would remove much of the discovery that this piece requires for enjoyment. Suffice it to say, though, that over the next hour, many conventions about pop concerts, theatrical spaces, and our mere presence will be investigated, as Feist recounts how the past two years have forced us all apart, and that this show represents an opportunity to bring us back together.

Throughout the piece, I was reflecting on two hallmarks of immersive theatre that I have experienced through the years, Ontroerend Goed’s piece The Audience, and Third Rail Project’s love letter to the theatre Ghost Light. Audience forced the viewer to think about their relationship to the performance, while Ghost Light made one reflect on the nature of artifice. Throughout the ten songs performed (almost all of which are newly composed for this show) those two concepts became intertwined through a skillful use of video and manipulation of space.

Hopefully, more musical artists can figure out how to blend these idioms together to create a new paradigm for the concert experience. Such shows can be transformative for audience and performers alike. I can’t wait to see the next one.

— Martin Gimenez, Guest Reviewer

Not Dead Yet — Zephyr Dance
$22.00; Chicago, IL; Run Concluded

Nestled between the Kennedy Expressway and the Metra tracks sits the obtuse triangle-shaped performance venue SITE/less. It’s packed with vibrantly painted green runway platforms, crisscrossing over each other at different heights. At the end of each, the runways curve upward, becoming a dead end wall. It’s the last place I’d expect to witness any dance performances, but Not Dead Yet features engaging and memorable work thanks to this dynamic staging.

Not Dead Yet consists of three separate performances, each conveying an emotionally vibrant response to the post-pandemic and war-torn world. When arriving, the first piece is underway, creator Michelle Kranicke continually tossing around colorful wrapping tissue. When Kranicke is joined by two performers, it becomes a thought-provoking piece of struggling to be happy. Next is Things Hidden and Left Unsaid, a powerful piece from Same Planet Performance Project. The quartet of dancers take command of the space, creating a vibrant soundtrack using only their breathing and bodies. Finally, Tom Brady performs captivating rope acrobatics in a haunting piece entitled Gone.

Ever briefly overshadowing the fantastic movement work in each piece was music with vocals or voice over. I suspect the intention is ensuring the story or message comes across clearly. Yet it feels reductive, each performer’s body and movement sufficiently conveying everything effectively. Additionally, while encouraged to move around, it was difficult due to limited space. Compounding the problem is total darkness occasionally, bumping into the runways a guarantee. I did, knocking a bar loose with a clatter.

Yet, I stress those are minor details. Overall each piece in Not Dead Yet effectively responds to the here and now through the dancer’s movement, generating a palpable emotional response within me. Heightening the effect of the three pieces is the fantastic usage of SITE/less, leaving no room on, off, and above the runways unused.

– Patrick B. McLean, Chicago Curator

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