Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life was written as a stage production with no characters—only dialogue. It discusses a woman named Anne, speculating about her life, offering words of love, insights of often dubious credibility, and immensely harsh judgment. At one moment, Anne is a hyper-conservative militant fascist. At another, she’s the victim of a conquering invasion. At another, she’s a vulnerable high schooler. At another, she’s a lonely traveler. The script on its own has all the trappings of an absurdist piece with an imprint of delightfully self-aware Britishness—think Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, but a bit more contemporary, with a knowing wink of meta-theater.
Well, the company, The Horse in Motion, helmed by director Bobbin Ramsey, took the script and transformed it into an immersive multi-media experience that takes place in several acts in many different rooms. The University Heights Center offers a perfect environment for this. Being an old school, it provides a nightmarish (and for some of us nostalgic) timelessness to the various scenes, as you’re—the audience—shuttled around from classroom to classroom, and even into a basement restroom.
Ultimately, the experience feels not so much like a play as an exploration of trust. At the beginning, the audience is divided into several groups, and each group is lead by a member of the company. You start by doing a couple of ‘getting to know you’ exercises with your group. The leader tells you that you will be well-taken-care-of. There are jokes, and you laugh. They lead you around to a room where you are genially welcomed, and a scene takes place either before you or around you. Then, organically, you are asked to leave, and you are shepherded to the next room. The smoothness of this is both admirable and disconcerting. As the scenes accumulate, contradictions crop-up, nonsenses, and notions that clearly come at you through the lens of bias and judgment. The trajectory takes a turn for the darker. You end up in a dark room where verbal and (controlled) physical violence transpires around you. You begin to realize, perhaps I can’t trust this? Perhaps I can’t trust our group’s leader here? And ultimately: What can I trust?
The production is further disconcerting in that it refuses to settle even in its own terms. The acting is extraordinary. These are fearless young performers, lithe and energetic, who flit from character to character, room to room, and even genre to genre with what seems like effortlessness. A couple of the scenes involve over-stylization, others are starkly naturalistic, and some take place in foreign languages, convincingly produced. The leaders of the groups phase in and out of the scenes, lending a further sense of ephemerality and instability.
It wasn’t until after the production that I realized what a logistically impressive accomplishment Attempts on her Life is. Each room has its own set, precisely and effectively designed (by Madison DeGidio and Stephanie Haire): a spotlessly white dining room table, a living room with crackers and cheese on plates (which you are invited to eat!), an art studio with Anne’s work on display (here, we learn that she presents her own suicide attempts as art). The costumes, by Desiree Jones, are on point. Four groups of audience members move from room to room, without conflicting with one another. The sheer coordination of it merits applause, along with the acting, the compelling thematic content, and the emotional squeeze of it
It sounds weird, and it is. But this company has performed an astonishing feat in taking a script as deliberately obtuse as Crimp’s, and turning it into something cohesive, devastating, and absolutely unforgettable.
Also–and this is important–with admission you get a free adult beverage that you get to carry around with you.
Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life, directed by Bobbin Ramsey, plays at University Heights Center (5031 University Way NE) weekend nights at 7:30pm from April 12 to April 27. For tickets, visit:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/601018