Like
much of Bertolt Brecht’s early work, In the
Jungle of Cities is more poetic than plotted and as
much mystical as political. A play that is sometimes set
alongside Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and
Shakespeare’s Macbeth as one of the classic
explorations of human evil, Jungle chronicles a
feud, sprung from incomprehensible motives, between a
Chicago bookseller and a Malaysian lumber merchant. The
language is dense, poetic, and evocative, frequently
defying both reason and traditional narrative.
It is a brave theater company indeed that will
sail into those muddy waters. But writer/director
Berrian Eno Van-Fleet and The Management Company have
done so, with a map of their own making.
This
Jungle of Cities, written by Eno-Van Fleet, takes
situations and ideas from Brecht’s play and re-imagines
them in contemporary settings, influenced by today’s
problems. The result (rather like the original) is a
difficult show that demands a great deal of thought and
attention from the audience, but pays it back with a
number of interesting ideas and powerful moments.
Many of the best things about This Jungle of
Cities are the performances. The actors have to dig
deep into the bare-bones poetry of the text to find
moments that are human, pathetic, and funny, but they do
it.
The highlight may be Megan Riordan’s
performance as Maria Nova, the sister of bookseller
Victor Nova, who gets drawn into her brother’s feud with
the merchant Zhi Tian. Riordan takes a role that could
easily be fragmented and nonsensical, and fills it with
a passion that makes us believe in her completely. Amy
Patrice Golden, as Victor, and Courtney Sale as his
girlfriend, Flora, do one of the best love scenes this
reviewer has seen in a long time, and Jennifer Harder
has some hilarious moments as Victor and Maria’s mother,
Malka.
Eno-Van Fleet’s direction is also
effective—she never talks down to the audience or hits
us over the head with symbolism. She stages her play’s
brutal conflicts for what they are, and allows us to
question them as we choose. While this kind of
interrogation can be tough to keep up with, the show’s
short running time prevents it from outlasting the
audience’s interest.
Jungle’s weak points
are usually connected to the text. Eno-Van Fleet’s
re-imagination is, if anything, even less comprehensible
than Brecht’s play, and audience members not at least
passingly familiar with the original may quickly become
lost. And, while the new, modern version of the story
focuses much more closely on the dynamics of power and
ownership than its rambling source material, it loses a
degree of depth and meaning in the process. The
homoeroticism and masochism that form a major part of
In the Jungle of Cities, for example, are
completely lost in the re-imagination. The persistent
updating of lines, themes, and elements makes the show
resemble a sound-alike score for a Hollywood film.
The only time the show really disappoints,
however, is at the very end. It seems, by the climax, as
if cast, writer and director have all run out of energy
for their ambitious experiment. Elements like scene
changes, which throughout the show have been
painstakingly executed, start to look sloppy. The
staging of the last two scenes is bland and rushed, and
the show’s final moment, which is clearly supposed to be
a tableau of beauty and horror, looks like a last-minute
addition.
Still, Jungle provides plenty
to engage an audience looking for an interesting and
challenging work of theater.
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The
Loft Theatre |
Category:
Drama
Written by: by Berrian Eno-Van
Fleet
Directed by: Berrian Eno-Van
Fleet
Produced by: The Management Co.
Opens: August
27
Closes: September 11
Running
Time: 1 hour
Theater: The
Loft Theatre
Address: 312 West 36th
Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10018
Mapquest Directions
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Tickets: $12.00
There is
a pass to all six mainstage shows of The UnConvention
for sale at www.theatermania.com.
Phone:
212-561-0636
Online Ticketing: Theatermania
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Creative TeamWritten
by: Berrian Eno-Van Fleet
Directed
by: Berrian Eno-Van Fleet
Produced
by: The Management Company
Music
by: DJ Coda Rock (Justin Lane
Briggs)
CastAmy Patrice Golden as Victor
Nova
Marguerite French as Moto Eck/The Blade,
America
Joan Adele Ryan as Zhi Tian
Rebecca
Jupiter as J. Caesar/Worm
Courtney Sale as
Flora
Jennifer Harder as Lefty Valentime/Baboon,
Malka Nova
Megan Riordan as Maria
Nova
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