Christian Rizzo’s Stuporous Tableaux are Minimalist, Hour-Long

Christian Rizzo’s b.c, janvier 1545, fontainebleau

A friend of mine who gave lectures for a living once joked that he was destined to be known as “witty” and “hour-long.” I don’t know why I thought of that, but I was free-associating a lot last night. I find myself agreeing with Claudia La Rocco’s review in the New York Times, when it comes to Christian Rizzo’s b.c, janvier 1545, fontainebleau (at On the Boards through Sunday, tickets $25).

Too soon this precision seems precious and fussy. Gerome Nox’s industrial, menacing score howls Sturm und Drang, and the audience waits, in suspense, for action that never takes place. Finally all of the objects have been put away, even Ms. Guibert. It seems they were only props.

I didn’t hate the piece; I was so bereft of reaction that (this never happens) I didn’t even clap. The woman next to me clapped enough for us both, her arms above her head. A couple, on the way out, looked at each other, and one said to the other in response to the unspoken question: “I liked some parts, I didn’t like some parts.”

For a more detailed description of the work itself, I can direct you to Jeremy’s preview article and Rizzo interview, here on The SunBreak. I’d just add that Julie Guibert’s living statue performance is at times mesmerizing, but so much so that it chafes against Rizzo’s project of downplaying the danced performance. This he diligently works at with choreography that is generally slow and deliberate, with repetition of a few movement phrases (I’m pleased to find someone else was impressed by The Scorpion!), so that they become genuinely familiar in the course of just an hour.

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And while the work begins in silence–you can hear Rizzo’s rosary-esque beads clacking as he moves about the stage in his Donnie Darko rabbit mask–Gerome Nox’s score is played for about two-thirds of the show at a notch below ear-splitting.

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For whatever reason, just prior to the show starting, I was musing over the experiences I’ve had in life that made me regret living, temporarily. One was being the altar boy for Thursday night rosary in my spent youth. I never really “got” the rosary (which, for you uninitiated consists of a set of prayers called “decades” which you repeat five times while in theory meditating on the life of Christ). Some people find this formalism transporting.

I occasionally passed out, it’s true. I think that was just low blood sugar, but maybe it was just a flat-lining of interest. My point here is that I may have simply had all the ritualizing of mundane experience that I can take, because this rosary thing went on for years.

The other perspective I’d offer is that after the show I was waiting for a bus, and a city employee was power-washing the area around the bus shelter. The washer made a hell of a racket, in contrast the to the simple beauty of this sheet of water fanning out, dead leaves and bits of gum tumbling through the air, the man’s wrist barely turning to direct it there and back, there and back, there and back. About four or five of us were standing there, watching, and of course this cost less than $25. There was no bunny mask, but he did have on a glow-in-the-dark vest.