the word ‘progress’
on my mother’s lips
doesn’t ring true
Written by Matei Visneic
Translated by Joyce Nettles
Directed by Istvan Szabo
Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland (map)
thru Jan 14 | tickets: $20-$25 | more info
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Trap Door gives voice to a story seldom heard on the American stage
Trap Door Theatre presents
the word “progress” on my mother’s lips
doesn’t ring true
Review by J.H. Palmer
Trap Door Theatre couldn’t be a more perfect venue for Matei Visniec’s piece: the word “progess” on my mother’s lips doesn’t ring true. Located in a recessed alley next to Jane’s Restaurant, the entrance to Trap Door takes you into a darker world; one that goes unnoticed by most passers-by. To get into the theater space, one must pass through part of the kitchen of Jane’s Restaurant, and into a space that feels like an long-kept secret. The second page of the playbill for progress informs audience members with “History of Yugoslavia within the Balkan States,” comprised of three dense paragraphs that summarizes almost 100 years of conflict.
Vibko bears witness to his grieving parents: The Mother (Beata Pilch) and The Father (Wladyslaw Byrdy), who have moved back to their dilapidated, burnt out house in an attempt to reclaim their home. The Mother searches in vain for some trace of her son; his boots or his shirt. She paws desperately through a wheelbarrow full of dirt, pulling out shards of china and other objects, and throwing them onto the floor. When she finds no trace of her son, she climbs into the wheelbarrow and curls up like a cat looking for someplace to nap. Vibko orders her to stop, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Pilch interprets The Mother’s anger and grief in a way that is visceral; at times I feared for her safety onstage.
As The Father, Byrdy acquiesces to his wife’s demands in an attempt to make sense of a senseless situation, asking his dead son rhetorical questions on his wife’s behalf, and literally getting weighed down with a series of heavy objects attached to pulleys in center stage. The New Neighbor (Malcolm Callan) tries to instill a lightness into the situation, looking on the bright side of everything, making observations like: at least the family home wasn’t completely burned down.
Visniec exposes the senselessness of the situation with lines of dialog like “what’s the point of digging up bones just to bury them somewhere else?”; and “what’s the point of a grave? Everywhere’s a grave.” At one point we hear a soliloquy on adopting another soldier’s bones to find meaning the same way that people adopt children to find meaning, at another we hear a litany of nationalities that have died fighting on this land, creating layers of dead.
 
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In contrast to this family drama are a group of misfits: The Transvestite (John Kahara) The Girl (Simina Contras), and The Mad Woman & The Smoking Woman (both played by Nicole Wiesner). They make cutting observations in a cabaret-like atmosphere where self-preservation is a way of life. The two storylines: parents in search of their son’s bones, and a rag-tag band of post-war misfits, run parallel to each other, appearing and disappearing in scenes that take us deep into the psyche of a war-torn nation.
Trap Door’s stated mission is to seek out challenging yet obscure works and bringing them to life, and in this they have succeeded. progress is certainly the most challenging piece of theater I’ve seen this season, both in the demands it makes on the actors, and the demands it makes on the audience to embrace the emotional weight of other people’s suffering.
Rating: ★★★½
the word ‘progress’ on my mother’s lips doesn’t ring true continues through January 14th at Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland Ave. (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm. Tickets are $25, and are available at TicketLeap.com More info at trapdoortheatre.com. (Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission)
 
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All photos by Istvan Szabo and Michal Janicki
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