Tymberly Canale, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Aaron Mattocks
Photo: T. Charles Erickson
Have you ever seen “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”?
“Nosferatu”? “M”? “Battleship Potemkin”? Well, if you have seen any of these
films, or any of the other expressionist films that came out of Russia and Germany in the 1920s or early
1930s, you will experience a bit a deja vu when you go see “Man in a Case,”
which recently opened at Hartford Stage.
Based on two short stories by Anton Chekhov, “Man in a Case”
stars Mikhail Baryshnikov, but it really stars the Big Dance Theater production
team, for what we have here is not so much dramatic theater as a multi-media
paean to techniques that changed the cinema world and, in the process, changed
how we tell stories. For some it might be off-putting, but for others it will
be mesmerizing.
Theater traditionalist might wish to stay away, but for
those with an open mind, who understand that for most of the twentieth century
the “image” has ruled – an image that can be distorted, re-framed, duplicated,
twisted and diffused – the evening offers much to think about, enjoy and
embrace, for “Man in a Case” is not so much a dramatic presentation (although
there is drama) as a comment on technique in storytelling, that is, an
assumption that a story can be told in many different ways at the same time,
through multiple images that comment on and, at the same time, contradict, what
is happening. In essence, “Man in a Case” is all about point of view, or,
rather, multiple points of view.
The first story – there are two, linked together by the
briefest of segues – deals with Byelikov (Baryshnikov), a teacher of Greek who
lives in a small Russian village and is ruled by rules. If something has not
been ordained by the powers that be then it is dangerous, and going against it
will bring about trouble. He is a man whose soul is configured by the arbitrary
rules of the state, a man who cannot relate to his fellow human beings because
diktats dictate his life. He locks himself in at night (multiple locks) only to
toss and turn in his bed as phantoms (kudos to video designer Jeff Larson and
lighting designer, Tony award-winning Jennifer Tipton) of the dictatorial state
haunt him. And then he meets a young woman (Tymberley Canale) who offers him
the possibility of human contact, contact he ultimately rejects because she is
just too full of rule-breaking life (she is a dancer and, of course, the
teacher can’t dance -- given the casting, a bit of dramatic irony), plus his
association with her draws unwanted attention -- in the form of a scurrilous cartoon
distributed liberally throughout the village…and the audience -- that makes him
a local laughingstock. He retreats to his apartment and, in despair, dies.
That’s the essence of the story, but it’s not the essence of
what “Man in a Case” offers its audience, for there are images upon images that
evoke emotions beyond those engendered by the play’s words and the teacher’s
plight, projected on multiple screens, images of laughing faces, images of a
knife continually cutting into a meal but never succeeding in the process,
images of school children endlessly walking up stairs, images of the teacher
standing before a door, seen through a spy-hole, as he attempts to visit his
fellow teachers – a visit that is ultimately devoid of human contact -- and images
of the young woman laughing at the teacher, projected on multiple screens in
his room. And then there is the final, diffused image of rain falling on trees
(with appropriate moody sound, compliments of Tel Blow) in a forest, projected
on a back screen, (Oh, how Russian, and perhaps an allusion to an opening scene
in “Dr. Zhivago”), as mourners gather under black umbrellas at the teacher’s
funeral.
The cast of "Man in a Case" Photo by T. Charles Erickson
The second story is even simpler: an educated man is charged
with working his family’s farm to pay off a debt, but when he travels to the
local village he meets and falls in love with a married woman. The agony is,
the woman and her husband befriend him, so he is in constant contact with them.
The wife slowly becomes neurotic (captured by tapping-finger images) and is
eventually sent off to a clinic to be tended to, her unrequited lover bidding
her good-by in her train car, riding the train for one station stop, then
detraining and walking home. He has rejected love...life...as did the
protagonist in the first story…because of “rules.”
Ah, but again there is so much more here in this second
story. There is a lovely ballet of hands between the man and woman, captured by
a video camera set on the table where they sit, plus close-ups of the woman’s
hands (again, via a video camera) as the agony of their unrequited love is
dealt with, as well as a dramatic pas de deux at the end of the story as the
two lovers lay on a checkerboard stage floor, their movements (a la Busby
Berkely) captured from above by a camera, their limbs seeking, their bodies
aching for, yet never achieving, full contact, creating stark images of
physical, emotional and psychological need and want. It’s ballet, but ballet
restricted by the confines of the relationship, and, as directed by Big Dance Theater’s
Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, it’s brilliant…and poignant.
Tymberly Canale and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Photo: T. Charles
Erickson
“Man in a Case” is an exercise in verbal and visual
storytelling, with the visual trumping the verbal. You may come away not
remembering the specifics of the two tales, but you will certainly come away
with many of the visuals embedded in your mind. Is that theater? Well, I guess
that’s dictated by what we expect and demand of theater. For me, the final
“dance” is worth the price of admission...totally unexpected and totally
fulfilling: naked need, desire and want captured in physical movement. Good
stuff.
“Man in a Case” runs through March 24. For tickets or more
information call 860-527-5151 or go to www.hartfordstage.org.
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