Two barefoot women wearing fur hats ride large tricycles slowly across the stage, tracing a cellophane path that rustles and snaps as their treads roll over its crinkles. Turning their heads toward the audience, the women regard us with a hint of disapproval, as if we’re the ones doing something unexpected. Chock-full of moments like this, 1,000 Forest Gorillas in Kansas was on the surface a kitchen-sink artistic exchange between creators Natalie George and Heloise Gold, whose sources of inspiration included a dream about a gorilla, a fascination with the number 1,000, and a joint artist residency in Kansas. But on second look – the performance was a revision of last year’s premiere – the gorillas, the sips of water counted down from 1,000, the tricycles, and the mock opera were all spun sugar around a central question: What if we took the time to count?
The work passed on to us the gifts of an artist residency: the time to notice and be present, the space to experiment and think. When a safari group observing a pair of gorillas in the wild (George and Gold) was overcome by the allure of lounging in the grass, they might as well have been members of the eight-to-five club trying out a creative-class lifestyle. Blurred lines between human and ape challenged ideas about who is allowed to do what, and the 10 magnetic performers – including Jason Phelps, Ellen Bartel, Amy Myers, and Noel Gaulin – reminded us that we all have the autonomy to change perspectives.
Gold loves to clown, and humor was a doorway opened early on. When segments of dance seemed authentically pensive, reveling in awareness of light, shadow, and physical presence, the performers inevitably broke into smiles or silliness; all in a day’s work, they seemed to say. By 10 minutes into the performance, when George and Gold took a series of very slow, very serious bows, audience members hooted on their own. A variety-show series of stage crossings ended with the cast serenely stepping across the stage, playing toy accordions.
Center stage, a screen tracked each sip of water taken, and two-thirds of the way through the 70-minute show, the countdown had only reached 952. The solution to this problem was “dressing-room-cam” that showed the performers between scenes, sipping and then chugging water. (K. Eliot Haynes designed the video and sound.) The counter sped down to 18, a number attainable by show’s end, but the collateral was that we were gunned back into the abstract. Until then and afterward, the show invited us to count like preschoolers, touching each event before moving onto the next.
The lapse of 800 singular sips of water suddenly felt like a loss, calling to mind the large numbers – in daily rhetorics about dollars, people, clicks – that are beyond our ability to count and impossible for us to understand in that way. Thus, the show became an argument for the necessary work of those who take the time to count. If you were in a certain mood, perhaps thanks to a conversation Gold and Bartel had, as they scooted, sitting feet-to-feet, across the stage, about the bleak outlook for the endangered forest gorilla, it was also, in part, the strangest of requiems.
1,000 Forest Gorillas in Kansas
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd.Feb. 27
This article appears in March 4 • 2016.
