New York Theatre Wire review

New York Theatre Wire
October 29, 1999

In the Limelight!
Gilgamesh Theatre's "Between the Mysts"
by Glenn Loney

PUPPETS ON POLES--Some stylish but silent players - created by Drama of Works - seen in Gilgamesh Theatre's "Between the Mysts." If you have secretly longed to visit the infamous club Limelight - but were afraid of being caught up in a drug-bust - you have just missed a fabulous risk-free feminist Window of Opportunity.

For an all-too-brief a run of eight performances in early November, Susan von Eck's adventurous Gilgamesh Theatre Group performed a revisionist vision of King Arthur's mysterious half-sister, Morgan le Fay.

This was quite a contrast to Gilgamesh's hilarious and very stylish Theatre Row production of Mikhail Bulgakov's "Black Snow," adapted by Keith Reddin.

Gilgamesh's current work's title, "Between the Mysts," suggests something strange, emerging out of primal Celtic mists, swirling around Arthur's legendary Camelot. Or, if you prefer, Avalon.

But Valerie Grambling, adaptress-director of this unusual theatre-event, is more intent on examining the Mysteries surrounding the Legend of Morgan. Those ancient sagas, poetic cycles, tall tales, and magical fables about Maid Morgan.

She who is also known as Fata Morgana and Baba Yaga - in her various guises as Witch, Sorceress, Enchantress, Healer, Seductress, Woman of Power, and the World's First Feminist Aviatrix.

Morgan, you see, discovered the secret of flight long before Leonardo da Vinci and the Brothers Wright. In the Gilgamesh staging, she and her coven do not need the wings of Icarus or Daedalus. Or even of Boeing or El Al.

They have quite ordinary brooms you can buy at your local Gristede's. Whether you will be able to soar aloft over Avalon - or even Central Park - is quite another matter.

In the Post-Modernist but nonetheless spooky foyer of Limelight, a double column of TV monitors prepares spectators for the main-event. Initially, the effect is of a waterfall coursing down the screens.

This videography has a name: "Behind the Mysts." Created by Jason Narvaez and scripted by Andrea Ryan, it is, in effect, a peek behind the scenes as the players explore the mysteries to be examined.

The waterfall fades, replaced by the faces of the Gilgamesh girls. They pose questions about the Mysteries and Legends of Morgan le Fay.

Was she a fairy or "fay"? Was she an evil witch, dealing in Black Magic? Was she a white witch and Healer?

Did she betray King Arthur by giving him a powerless copy of his magical sword Excalibur for his last and fatal combat? If so, why did she wish him and the Round Table dead?

These are questions you could ask Pat Buchanan, William Bennett, or even Al Gore, and they would have no definitive answers.

Neither do the Girls of Gilgamesh. Their tempestuous multi-media examination of the Morgan Myths is cast in the framework of an animated, acted-out debate about Morgan's true identity, character, intentions, and acts.

Various visions of Morgan are posited by characters identified as Vulgate, Palfrey, Pyle, Charlemagne, Malory, and Longfellow. The Vulgate, of course, is not a person, but Longfellow, Malory, and Pyle certainly did write about Morgan.

From his "Life of Merlin," Geoffrey of Monmouth is quoted on Morgan:

"Her name is Morgan, and she has learned the uses of all plants in curing the ills of the body. She knows, too, the art of changing her shape, of flying through the air, like Daedalus, on strange wings."

Julianne Yazbek impersonated Geoffrey, with Wesley Stahler as the ubiquitous Morgan. Andrew Irons - as the token man in this thespian coven - was Vulgate, but not vulgar.

In this production, the Modernist Minimalist Bottom-Line - judging Morgan from our context, rather than from contexts of centuries of superstition and ignorance - seems to be that she was a brilliant, powerful, willful woman, in a time when there was no scope for such talents and ambitions.

One of the most interesting and ingratiating elements of "Between the Mysts" is Gilgamesh's ingenious use of mysterious and medieval puppets, created by Drama of Works.

Puppets in combat may seem a bit wooden, but at least they don't have vocal problems.

Unfortunately, some of the troupe - whatever their theatrical studies may have been: HB Studios, Austin Pendelton, Stella Adler Studios, Wynn Handman, American Academy - haven't had effective voice-training.

There is too much shrillness, too much straining and shouting to achieve dramatic effect. This is both annoying and wearing. Counterproductive.

Some, if not all of the troupe, need training in relaxation - give those tense articulators a chance! - and in diaphragmatic breathing & breath-control.

Harshness and nasality are almost always by-products of tension and stress. But just because would-be theatre-artists live in stressful New York is no excuse for having ugly voices - or for using their voices ineffectively.