Shortly after Jason and I arrived in the
spacious, beautiful proscenium theater of John Jay College where the seats
are clean and fairly spaced (Ah luxury!) and the sound booth is suspended
on a catwalk over the audience (now that I’ve seen it, everything else
seems ridiculously stupid) and a small cellophane wrapped package awaits
use "upon direction"; "mnemonic" is defined by the
director of the Theater de Complicite as the connections that trigger
memory. For the sake of illustration, we are asked to put on the issued
satiny black eye masks and hold a large leaf in our hands remembering
where we were last week, last year, eight years ago. Sounds a bit hokey,
but when we begin to imagine our parents and our parents’ parents and
their parents and every single human being that was responsible for our
existence, the sense of connection is heightened and we remember our
common roots. Then before we have taken off the mask and dropped our veiny
leaves, the play has begun. The director’s taped voice keeps playing
long after he has left the stage and well into the introduction of the
main character, supposedly a fellow patron at a lecture on the brain
connections that trigger memory.It was a simple idea. Clever in its straightforward, clean way. It was the best first ten minutes of a play that I have ever experienced.
The story unfolds slowly from there, or rather the connections grow rapidly and in their lulls the plot is revealed in flashes like a room lit by passing cars. As a matter of fact much of the visual aspect of the play is shadowy action seemingly lit by blinking your eyes. This dreamlike vision is reminiscent of memory sequences in movies that happen long ago and far away. It’s all very consuming.
Unfortunately for Jason and I, also known as the only two people on Earth who must pee as soon as they enter a situation where no peeing is possible, there was no intermission. But, it would have been a terrible mistake to break the rolling energy of the tale of links. For instance, there was no way that an entire scene that used a chair to act out the journey of an ancient ice man to his death would have worked if we had one minute away from the world of mnemonics where every breath was a progression based on connection.
The play was abducting. It stole you into its possession. It couldn’t have worked any other way, because there wasn’t any one clear meaning to hold on to and it was too long to be just entertaining. When it was over and we ran to the bathroom and then shuffled onto the Westside streets, Jason and I both felt strange, pensive, affected. I wasn’t sure I fully understood what I had seen, but I was sure that it had been a work of beauty and precision. I was sure it was art. I was sure I would never forget the gentle chill in the air that spring night. A couple asked us to take their picture; it was the man’s Birthday. We saw an abandoned chair on 58th Street. The director of the play wore a blue shirt and I’ll never forget that because Mnemonic made me remember to remember to relish the connections.