@ Z Space: In a Memory Palace

Last night at Z Space I saw the first performance of In a Memory Palace, a resonant & mesmerizing new work. Done in the style of Noh Theater, it is the story of a middle-aged woman who visits her father in a senior residence only to encounter a strange & strangely familiar old woman, who reminds her of a childhood neighbor, a refugee from Hitler's Austria, a woman she was sure had died long before. Though this work has a very specific storyline, it is evocative of other journeys, both chosen & forced, both physical & mental; the evocation is not only on the stage, but in the lobby, which contains an installation exploring different aspects of exile & emigration. Moving away from some "native land" or from your family traditions is such a basic American story that it would be difficult to find, I think, someone who didn't connect with this material on some level, perhaps even a profound one.

(I give away some plot twists below, so take that into consideration when deciding whether to read on, though most of them are fairly easily guessed if you've seen any Noh plays.)

This work floats suspended in a liminal space: between Japanese & Western theatrical techniques & traditions; between the flute & percussion of Noh & the Western sounds of cello & piano evoking fin de siècle Vienna; between present & past; among the actual, the remembered, the supernatural, & the desired. The stage is bare; there are actually two stages, a broad main one, bright white, & then, on its left, a smaller one, the same bright white, that functions as the entry/exit ramp as in Noh Theater (but it also, in being slightly set apart & narrower than the main stage, though otherwise resembling it, reinforces the subtle disjunctions that are part of the mood & metaphors of the piece). At the back of the playing area are several very long overlapping translucent white curtains (sort of like shower curtains); onto these are projected monochrome designs, some of them ambiguous (waves? rocks? massed foliage? as well as stars or stylish Viennese designs). To the right, off from the main stage, sits a chorus of eight, who sometimes chant comments on the action.

As in Noh, the action is very deliberate, very considered. The dialogue is mostly chanted to musical accompaniment & is poetic in its repetitions & phrasings. At times I could not catch every line, which is just a reality of listening to material that is sung with musical accompaniment. I briefly wished that they had used surtitles, but decided that would have been too distracting, at least for a compulsive reader like me. As with comments written in the margin of a book, the printed words would pull you out of your own total experience of the material & impose concentration on only certain aspects of what's going on. The imperfection of our perception is actually a key theme of the work, the blurring of words & memories, the half-caught phrases & the passing glimpses of life. Surtitles would force on the work an almost counter-effective clarity. This is not to discount the power & beauty of the words, but just to suggest that's what most important here is not catching each individual line (most of which are clear enough, as is the storyline) but immersing yourself in the mood, one created by slowness, the intense presence of the characters, the spare but rich setting, the mystery of memory, & of the past, our own & the world's.

For it turns out there are several mysteries around the older woman. The woman who remembered her from childhood (she's wrapped in a shawl, sort of babushka style, printed with an abstract monochrome design but with a very bright red fringe; the performer sits to the side for most of the performance with an intense, riveting, attentive quiet) remembered her as saying she was a concert pianist. This elderly woman claims she was a well-known fashion designer to the Viennese haute monde. She was a Catholic married to a Jew; after the Anschluss, such women were "encouraged" to leave their husbands but she refused & they managed to emigrate but of course abandoning their homes & homeland threw their lives off-course & the glamor & excitement of her fashionable, sophisticated Viennese world vanished with that world.

Perhaps this is why the woman's spirit is haunting the earth, to make her story known, or just to revisit herself the life she should have had. Ghosts are a traditional presence in Noh. The character of the old woman is the only one in this play to be masked in the traditional style. But her costumes are Western: a series of strikingly sumptuous gowns in the style & colors (lots of Klimt-like swirls & gold) of the Vienna Secessionists. She ends the work with a solo dance, summoning both the traditions of Japanese theater & the vanished waltzes of Vienna.

The play is brief (about one hour & fifteen minutes) but intense & concentrated, the sort of thing that will flower out in your mind afterward. It is playing at Z Space through 1 August & then goes to San Antonio, Texas. The play has a dedicated website, which you can find here. I will say that the playbill was not entirely clear about who did what & if there was a cast list I couldn't find it. So here's what I found (much of this comes from J Magazine, which had an article about the show; there were copies available in the theater lobby): the script is by Edith Newton, based on elements from her life; the music by David Crandall & Kevin Salfen, costumes by Margaret Mitchell, masks by Kitazawa Hideta, direction by Jubilith Moore. The show was presented by Theatre Nohgaku with Kunoichi Productions & Theatre of Yugen. Kudos to all of them & to the actors & musicians on a magnificent evening.