WHAT WOULD JOYCE KILMER SAY? (6/25/2011)

Ever since arriving in New York I had wanted to go to a performance at The Kitchen, one of the most important venues for experimental art, but had been thwarted on several occasions.   I was determined to get to what promised to be a most unusual performance, How to Build a Forest. This 8 hour performance involves building a "forest" on the floor of the theatre and then breaking it down. The audience is free to enter and leave and, for much of the performance, to wander in the forest and see materials close up.  All the materials of the forest have been created from materials that cannot be returned to their natural state.  This makes the project about our development of materials from nature that are so altered that they become toxic to the environment.

                              Entrance to The Kitchen on W. 19th St. in Chelsea

The creators of this production Katie Pearl, Lisa Damour and Shawn Hall, meticulously recreate the development of an old-growth forest.  "Forest rangers" greet audience members, orient them to the production and are available to answer questions.  A team of "forest builders" place items on the stage and manage the riggings as the forest grows up to the ceiling.  The result is a work that is a fantasy forest that recreates the details of a forest while at the same time uses only "unnatural" materials.    

                                                The bare staging area.

                                       Clearing the "ground" for the forest.

                                   First elements are placed on the ground.

                                             More elements are added.

                                           The forest is almost complete.

                                                  The forest is complete.

                                            Wandering in the forest.

                    An old vinyl recording of  "Paradise" is used to top off a stump.

As they go about their tasks each cast member develops his or her own character, some having Type A personalities and some  more Type B.  Movements are choreographed and there is solo and ensemble activity.  As I observed the growth of the forest I wondered how it might be to have a play wherein the cast members put the set together and take it apart as part of the play itself.   This is what happens here as well but with almost no text to deliver. 

Several times I took breaks to go walk along the High Line elevated park that runs right by the theatre.  It was interesting to compare the experience of seeing this wonderful space in its full summer glory with the artificial environment being created in the theatre.