onStage Pittsburgh: Limits of Things, or the Mess creator and performer Mark Conway Thompson describes his show as “three vignettes and two one-act plays for movement theatre.” Given that four of the five are unvoiced pantomime, and there are only a few spoken sentences in the remaining piece, classifying the vignettes vs. the one-act plays remains an audience guessing game at best.
1 comment:
There is something so special, significant, and brave about work that pushes the limits of traditional theatre. You never know how one might respond to the piece, but I do truly believe stepping outside the 'known' and into the unknown is a key part to the evolution of theatre as an art form. Mark Conway Thompson, creator and performer of Limits of Things, or the Mess, describes his show as "three vignettes and two one-act plays for movement theatre." According to the article, four of the five have no dialogue and are "pantomime", and the fifth only has a few spoken sentences. The article describes it as a "guessing game", but I do not think that this is the most grounded criticism. There are some other criticisms in the article, for instance, one of the pieces, Captive, almost mansplaining the white male experience, that are extremely valid. However, "guessing game" is not something that would be used to describe a dance piece, an orchestra piece, etcetera–I strongly believe that it is alright to not know the exact meaning. Based on the reviews, the piece certainly has flaws, but hopefully it demonstrates a greater acceptance and increased reception of more experimental theatre, for better or for worse.
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