|
BREATH[e] Designed and Directed by Steve Lucas The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen Street West Thursday, April 25 - Saturday, May 18, 2002 ONLY! Review by Richard Ouzounian, Toronto Star - April 30, 2002 Steve Lucas is one of the most talented lighting designers in this city and his name on a theatrical program is virtually a guarantee of quality illumination. But that's when he has something to light. BREATH[e], which opened last Thursday at the Theatre Centre, is nothing but lighting and it's really not enough. A select group of 27 people per performance sit staring at a black box for just over a half hour, while they hear a soundscape centred on the recorded breathing of actress Jane Miller and watch hundreds of electrical cues dissolve into each other with nothing but fog to help define them. At first, it has a decidedly soothing effect and it can't be denied that some of the sequences have a hypnotic charm. Lucas certainly knows the dynamics of his art form and his work with colour is subtle and masterful. But before too long you start wishing that there was something for you to hold on to. Without a focal point, the mind begins to wander, and you may find yourself pondering your tax return or thinking about next week's grocery list. True, that can happen in more conventional theatre as well, but usually not during the first 10 minutes. Lucas has given interviews where he claims the seven chakras (or points of energy) that are central to Tantric philosophy were the inspiration for the colours he has chosen and the pattern of feelings he expects it all to generate. Fair enough, but it's almost impossible to discern any of that from the ebb and flow of multi-hued images you experience in the theatre. I am also deeply suspicious of any shows that have to be explained by their creators. Poet and playwright Archibald Macleish got it right when he wrote, "A poem should not mean, But be." Lucas also claims he was inspired by Samuel Beckett's less-than-a-minute play, Breath, in which a room full of garbage is briefly revealed to the accompaniment of an offstage cry and a gasping intake of air. But even that work, minimalist though it is, has a distinct shape to it. Breathe adds the letter "e" and 30 minutes of time, but it loses the very qualities that gave Beckett's work its resonance. In the end, despite a high level of craft, you feel that you have just witnessed a piece of performance art from which the performance was missing. Theatre has to contain the human element. It can survive without lighting, set, script and direction — but if a true connection is to be forged (which is surely the purpose of theatre), then there have to be human beings onstage as well as in the audience. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley Kowalski may have spoken of his desire to "get those coloured lights going," but I'm sure he was thinking of something a lot more basic (and interesting) than the Lucas lightshow currently on display. |