THE MeLTING BRIDgE

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Would that Lucidity Suitcase’s new play THE MeLTING BRIDgE ran longer at Buntport. A work in progress, THE MeLTING BRIDgE prepares for its World Premier at the 2008 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September. At Buntport it has gone through fine-tuning, and indubitably will continue to climb through the fine-tuning process right up to Opening Night.

Thaddeus Phillips in The MeLTING BRIDgE

Part of me is sorry I couldn’t see it until all too late in the run, and part of me is glad I saw it when I did setting my imagination on fire. Denver artist, Thaddeus Phillips who has proved his ability time and again creating outside the box magical illusions, does not disappoint.

In spite of all of the media material, books, and speeches concerning the environment catching my attention, nothing quite sparked, as does THE MeLTING BRIDgE. It doesn’t preach. It doesn’t hit over the head. It doesn’t create a Doomsday scenario What it does do is offer a tremendous amount of material to consider, ponder, and weigh against contained in a brilliant piece of work. When it is fine-tuned to the nth degree, it will stand up to be counted on its own platform.

Video shots of Alaska’s Bering Straight, a Mexico City Subway, the Amazon Jungle, and a small prop plane become part of the set. Phillips, as Owen, a business executive for a paper company works so closely with the video, you expect him to walk right into the ice covered Bering Straight or into the flowing Amazon, coming out dripping wet.

Owen’s paper company developed means to clone Eucalyptus trees in Brazil, having a circumference of just a few inches. There are acres and acres of these trees, but as he says in a lecture at the Marriott Hotel, Mexico City they’re all the same tree. The wood is then shipped to Germany to be turned into paper products, mostly toilet paper that becomes exceedingly soft, and marketed in the USA. As a high executive official, this man Owen stands tall and proud of his job and his company, a hyper cheerleader for the company’s accomplishments.

His father, an, archaeologist has been dismissed from his position at a Chicago University for radical ideas about the Bering Straight. His disappearance alarms Owen leading him on a search. The search takes him to The Bering Straight where his father left him an obscure script containing Mayan prophecies appearing to match up with current catastrophes. A large cloth is laid out on the stage with huge crinkles and waves for Owen to trudge across Alaska’s cold terrain, the cloth becomes a slight stretch of the imagination, but following the video the imagination accepts it without question. We know where he is, and what he is doing.

In front of the Zocolo Mexico City Subway Station, a newsstand managed by a woman, Tatiana Mallarino, never speaking a word, becomes part spirit guide, part shaman, part magician, and part seer. Her feather dusters used to keep the newsstand free of collected matter, serve her well to direct energy and protect his spirit. Mallarino shines marvelously as part human, part ethereal, part real, part magical. Her eyes glisten and speak volumes more than any scripted words possibly could. Is she real or a force working within Owen? She could be both. Sometimes he sees her, sometimes he doesn’t. Defining her, giving her a name would defeat her purpose She’s “eye catchingly” gracious, and graceful. Her newsstand becomes a “portaled” time machine. What’s truly amazing is she needs no explanation. She defines herself,

Subtitles appear above the stage for conversations in Spanish and to identify the various places in Owen’s journey. Prior to the beginning of the play a stark light bulb shines on the stage, washing out the very first subtitle. When the light bulb is replaced, a second thought gives permission to turn off the stark bulb.

Owen’s father’s mysterious disappearance leaves clues for Owen, leading right into Mayan history. The Mayan civilization might have collapsed because of excessive warfare, foreign invasion, revolt within the civilization, or decline in trade. Maybe not from just one of these aspects, but all of them feeding into each other. A Mayan medallion was discovered in 1973 while excavating for the Zocolo Subway station in Mexico City. Under tons of silt and dirt, and rock, the Mayan culture began to reveal itself smack in the middle of urban Mexico City. The Professor, Owen’s father, began questioning accepted “truths” about the migration onto North America via The Bering Strait 20,000 years ago. As he entertains new theories, the established protocol rejects him while he encourages his son to keep the door of his mind open to new possibilities. Something within Owen grabs his attention. Something inside begins to rattle him into unchartered territory. Much of his journey becomes unspoken, and yet with Phillips performance, the journey also becomes ours.

With the video scanning The Bering Strait as Owen trudges across in snowshoes and cold weather gear, it’s as though we stand next to him. When he’s discovering clues, we discover them right along with him. When he’s riding a boat down the Amazon, you can feel the boat’s movement. He’s delving into the unknown, and we are delving right along with him. When his brain itched with curiosity, mine did too. He made me feel the journey every step of the way. The Mayan Calendar speaks of a cataclysmic event on December 21, 2012. For anyone halfway interested in Mayan history, this is not new information, but fits snugly into Owen’s journey. Brazil, Germany, The Bering Strait, Mexico City, The Amazon, the Mayans, the Aztecs the shifting of the world as we know it, global warming, weather pattern changes, does it all tie together? THE MeLTING BRIDgE doesn’t attempt to answer questions. It doesn’t want to. A journey is only a journey until a destination is reached. It squirrels itching curiosity sliding from one time period to another spurring Owen further on the mysterious journey, spurring me on. Much of the information I have seen and heard before. Lucidity Suitcase ties things loosely together enough to want to know more. When a play does that, as some have, my book budget gets turned upside down and sideways.

Through the newsstand portal, Owen transforms into his Mexican wrestling superhero Quinto Sol feeding his alter ego. There’s a wrestling match carefully, artfully, humorously choreographed with the assistance of Brian Colonna. The fantasy match feeds courage to Owen to continue this strange journey taking him further and further away from cheerleading the paper company,

By now his father is deep in the Amazon waiting for him.

The boat will take him so far and then he’ll have to travel alone. No one will go with him. There’s a wanting somewhere to raise the hand to speak outright, “I’ll go.” I want to know what his father has in store for him. I want to be there for the discovery. The play ends abruptly before he must trek on alone. He’s still on the boat. The play stops but the imagination doesn’t, and it wants to know more.

This is, after all, Owen’s journey. Mine will have to continue on its own volition. It will.

When a play strikes such a rich chord within me, when curiosity itches, it has accomplished a magnanimous objective, and to think this one is still a work in progress.

Hopefully, Buntport will bring back THE MeLTING BRIDgE for another run within the not too distant future. It deserves another run.