Review: Crave (The Blind Owl Theatre)

  
  
  
Crave 

Written by Sarah Kane
Directed by Azar Kazemi
at Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge (map)
thru Aug 26  |  tickets: $10   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
   Read entire review
  

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Blind Owl sees fine in this audacious production

Blind Owl Theatre presents

Crave

Review by Clint May 

To wade into the deep waters of Crave is to enter the subconscious ocean of a mind rife with contradiction. Rip tides pull below, while above the flotsam is occasionally (heart)broken by insights leaping into the sunlight only to dive back into murky depths. Sarah Kane’s fourth play (of five, before her suicide in 1999 at 28) is an intimidating work to both perform and behold. Pulling in even as it pushes away, it’s a lyrical work that never lets up as it struggles against itself in a fitful attempt to explore the chasms of connections that link us and divide us. The Blind Owl—a relatively new ensemble team led by artistic director Azar Kazemi—rises to the challenge and successfully inhabits the mind of a controversial playwright that left us too soon.

As Kane was an aspiring poet who turned to drama after realizing it was the better vessel for her insight, it makes sense that Crave feels like several intermingling poems. Each of the four performers are named only by a letter, as though they are only parts in a rhyming scheme: M (Marielle de Rocca-Serra), C (Gabi Mayorga), B (Jared Lorenzo) and A (Tibor Radvanyi). This is completely appropriate as each one is less an actor per se and more a receptacle for Kane’s meditations and their own spin upon them. To say that is not to diminish their accomplishment in anyway. A clockwork perfection is required by each of them to ensure that the free associations move and drift about, as words and dance-like movements pull apart then flow back together in a haunting synchronicity. A cat’s cradle of words is woven, and each of them plays a sort of Red Rover with the string, trying to break through the connections even as it ties them up (sometimes literally). Perhaps the thing they—and Kane—are struggling with is that for all its seeming complexity, it was all one piece of string the entire time. They meditate almost manically on opposing forces: desire vs. repulsion, rape vs. surrender, life vs. death, singularity vs. connectivity, freedom vs. destiny.

What’s fascinating about watching The Blind Owl’s interpretation (and much was intentionally left to interpret) is if you take a moment to step outside, it’s easy to see a dozen ways it could have gone wrong. In less sure hands, it might have become little more than the reading of a self-absorbed adolescent teenager’s journal at a slam poetry night. Thankfully this is not the case under Kazemi’s steady but never boring direction. No one performance can be singled out here, perhaps because each one is the piece of an aggregate and at times it’s difficult to distinguish who is plucking what string.

To give this three of four stars is only to temper my recommendation—to acknowledge with no aloofness that this not a play for everyone. Challenging in its free-associative lyricism, Crave is a demanding piece with an effect that ripples into the subconscious. Wading into these waters is not for the faint of heart. If you go in with an open mind and a willingness to give into the disconcertion, Crave will take you to a maelstrom of longing and leave you standing at the harrowing event horizon.

Rating: ★★★

Crave continues through August 26th at Rivendell Theatre, 5779 N. Ridge (map), with performances Thursdays-Satrudays at 8pm Sundays 3pm.  Tickets are $10, and are available online through BrownPaperTickets.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at TheBlindOwl.org.  (Running time: 60 minutes, no intermission)

Photos by Azar Kazemi

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artists

cast

Marielle de Rocca-Serra (M), Gabi Mayorga (C), Jared Lorenzo (B), Tibor Radvanyi (A)

behind the scenes

Azar Kazemi (director, photographer): Jacob Shuler (stage manager); Noah Hayman (lighting); Cara Adams (costumes); Jack Hawkins (sound design); Lesley Jackson (scenic design and set photos); Elizabeth Thomas (asst. director); Melanie Plank (poster design); Will Gillspie, Morgan Madison (video directing, editing); Leah Raidt, Colin Sphar, Patricia Lavery (marketing); Barry Brunetti (production advisor)

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