Video projection is always a tricky element to incorporate into live theater, but I've seldom seen three-dimensional performance merged with digital imagery as movingly as in Redmoon's charming, melancholy new show, "Dr. Egg and the Man with No Ear." The stage pictures brought to life by Australian creator Jessica Wilson and Redmoon artistic director Jim Lasko—with animations by Jamie Clennett—are all the more affecting because they actually complement Redmoon's usual, decidedly low-tech aesthetic: a bunraku-style puppet girl swims through a digitally-rendered ocean; a desolate sea shore is conjured by a black and white lighthouse projected on a transparent screen.
What's so exciting about the show's marriage of physical objects with ghostly projections is that the combination enhances the emotional heft of the story being told (the play is based on an original story by Catherine Fargher). It's the chronicle of a young girl's determination to find respite for her father, haunted by an encounter with a raging dog who tore off his ear and killed his wife, the girl's mother. (The father's torment about his missing appendage is wittily illustrated in a dream sequence featuring ear-winged butterflies and a grotesque animated tree sprouting suitcases filled with ears.)
The girl stumbles across the laboratory of a certain Dr. Egg (Adam Shalzi), a modern-day Caligari whose laboratory experiments yield genetic wonders. She commissions Dr. Egg to generate a replacement ear for her ailing dad; the resulting monstrosity raises topical questions about the ethics of messing with nature and playing God.
Most of this story is conveyed wordlessly by the silent film-type actors in a highly polished physical style; the performers' contorted faces have the planar angularity of carved wood. But the details are filled in by a campy MC-style narrator (Dominic Green) whose arch histrionics are a tonal distraction from the otherwise creepy-somber feel of the piece. And while most of the individual moments are well crafted, the show lacks narrative drive and suffers from bouts of slow pacing. Still, the show offers a haunting demonstration of the way technology can be harnessed to convey theatrical truth.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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