Electic Company Theatre: Vancouver BC, Canada

Studies in motion: The hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge
Reviewed by Colin Thomas

Publish Date: 26-Jan-2006

Photo Caption: Juno Ruddell and Dawn Petten snap in Studies in Motion.

By Kevin Kerr. Directed by Kim Collier. An Electric Company, Theatre at UBC, and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival coproduction. At the Frederic Wood Theatre until Sunday, January 29

This show about a photographer takes a long time to come into focus, but when it does the vision is extraordinary.

Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) is a historical figure famous for his studies of animal and human movement, especially those of horses galloping and naked people walking. Possibly because of brain damage suffered in a stagecoach accident, the innovator sometimes behaved wildly. Before he embarked on his groundbreaking work—which led to the invention of cinema, among other things—Muybridge shot and killed his wife’s lover. Jury members rejected his plea of insanity but acquitted him because they thought his actions were justified.

The central conceit of Studies in Motion is that, in his art, Muybridge was struggling to control his animalism by breaking behaviour into manageable units, thinly sliced seconds. His photos expose the profound beauty in ordinary bodies but also rob those bodies of context. The resulting combination of delight and horror helps to define modernity, as does the experience of being cut loose from the world of our physical senses and released into nonlinear, atomized time.

Fair enough. But the story is that Muybridge killed a guy and he’s freaked out about it. Playwright Kevin Kerr doesn’t make this clear until his second act, so his first wanders. Why should we care about the boy who keeps appearing to the photographer in Act 1, for instance? Kerr doesn’t give us enough context to create a compelling mystery. The real reason to engage is related to the killing.

Thanks to director Kim Collier, choreographer Crystal Pite, and designer Robert Gardiner, Studies in Motion is always seductive to look at, however. And when Kerr’s script kicks into gear—as it does about halfway through Act 2—the resulting complexity is sublime.

Consider the staging of the fatal shot. Behind Muybridge, a whole chorus of arms raises pistols, and when the shot is fired, the bodies attached to those arms explode into freeze-frame images of reeling response. It’s agonizing: actor Andrew Wheeler makes you ache with Muybridge’s pain. It’s hilarious: just before shooting, the cuckolded husband says, “I have a message for you from my wife”; staggering from the impact of the bullet, Larkyns, the seducer, perks up to say, “She said that, did she? You’re sure you’re not just paraphrasing or something?”

Playing Larkyns and an art teacher, Jonathan Young is so fresh in every second you know the guy has to become a star. Juno Ruddell plays Blanche, a clerical assistant Muybridge develops a crush on, and her take is effective, though perhaps too self-consciously innocent. Then again, Blanche’s philosophical dilemma could be more clearly written. Lara Gilchrist gives Flora, Muybridge’s wife, a wooden coquettishness that drains all potential for audience sympathy.

This script could use more driving dramatic motion .

Headline: Actors PuSH limits at B.C. fest
Review by: ALEXANDRA GILL

The Perfectionist & Studies In Motion: the Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge

The Perfectionist
Written by Jay Dodge, Jill A. Samuels and Sherry J. Yoon
Directed by Jill A. Samuels
Starring Jay Dodge and Sherry J. Yoon
At the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island

Rating: **½

Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge
Written by Kevin Kerr
Directed by Kim Collier
Starring Andrew Wheeler, Juno Ruddell and Allan Morgan
At the Frederic Wood Theatre at UBC

Rating: ***½

Studies in Motion could well be the title of an academic paper or arts-council report on the imaginative feats of physical theatre that are practised by the best of Vancouver's small companies. The Perfectionist, alas, aptly describes the tendencies within these same companies to keep pushing the boundaries of movement and spectacle at the expense of good storytelling.

As it happens, these are the names of two new local productions that opened last week as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, a month-long event, now in its fourth year, that brings some truly exciting music, dance, puppetry and theatre to the city.

Both productions are mesmerizing sights to behold, but only one comes close to overcoming Vancouver's consistent weakness at blending impressive physicality with a compelling narrative.

The Perfectionist, which opened at the Waterfront Theatre on Saturday, is the tormented brainchild of Boca del Lupo, the collective group that stages high-flying shows atop the trees of Stanley Park each summer.

Staged as a satellite of the PuSh Festival and touring to Toronto's Free Fall Festival next month, The Perfectionist was inspired by the work of Paul Hewitt, a psychology professor who studies debilitating and sometimes suicidal behaviour at the University of British Columbia's Perfectionism and Psychopathology Lab.

The show's two performers, Boca co-founders Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge collaborate with Yukon animation artist Jay White to tell the surreal story of an overachieving couple -- one so manic he can't stop cleaning, the other so depressed she can barely get out of bed.

Set on a bare, black stage, the action takes place around a giant screen, with the characters appearing behind it, as silhouetted shadows, and in front, interacting with animated projections.

Lighting designer John Webber creates several moments of dazzling beauty. At one point, Yoon's character drops her robe behind the screen and soaps her naked body under an animated shower while telling a story of her Korean grandmother's obsession with the biblical flood. Combined with the magnificently synchronized music from composer-vibraphonist Joelysa Pankanea and guitar-banjo-viola player Steve Charles (who perform off to the side of the stage), the scene becomes pure poetry in motion.

Unfortunately, there are too many other visual affects that are so obsessively repeated, they become extremely annoying. Yoon and Dodge went all the way to New York to study the Japanese Suzuki Method, which focuses on exacting movements in the lower body so they're obviously eager to show off their clever new footwork. But do we really need to watch them kick their feet up or stomp the floor again and again and again? Director Jill Samuels needs to rein it in.

The flood theme, echoed through dream sequences in which the characters prepare to dive off a bed, attempts to stitch the visual sequences together with some sort of mythical thread, but it's all very vague. Much like its subject, The Perfectionist suffers by being too self-consciously precious.

Eadweard Muybridge was also a perfectionist. The late 19th-century-photographer, widely considered the forefather of cinema, painstakingly shot thousands of frames to capture the intricacies of animal and human movement. He was so obsessed with the project, his personal relationships and marriage all blew up -- explosively, in the case of his wife's lover, who he murdered with a shotgun in 1874.

Fortunately, Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge doesn't succumb to the same destructive tendencies. The play is co-production the PuSh festival, Theatre at UBC and the Electric Company, the latter of which has created such award-winning shows as Brilliant!, The Score and The Fall. Over the years, the company has been steadily building on its exuberant brand of physical theatre by paying more attention to writing.

Bringing Kevin Kerr in as a co-artistic director has certainly helped. Kerr received the Governor-General's Literary Award for Unity (1918), which was produced by Touchstone Theatre in 2001. For Studies in Motion, he has written a complex, thoughtfully layered script that makes us laugh and care about this deeply troubled man.

Kerr is helped along by an impressive cast, including Andrew Wheeler as the arrogant genius (although it would help if his white, woolly beard was trimmed just a bit). Dawn Petten pretty much steals the show as the comical Blanche, an exuberant nude model who is eager to participate in the study. Jonathon Young, however, needs to work at distinguishing his separate roles.

What makes this production so strong, however, is the tight collaboration between script, choreography, lighting and sound. Crystal Pite has created some striking sequences in which the characters disrobe and march across a grid stark naked. With digital light projectors, Robert Gardiner, creates groundbreaking strobe and stop-motion effects that mimic Muybridge's madness. Patrick Pennefather's aural soundscape, with tempos ranging from techno to thunder, echoes these movements with riveting precision. Director Kim Collier deserves the highest praise for deftly weaving all these elements together.

With so much happening in this production, there are bound to be a few weak points. The transitions between some scenes are clunky. And the marching scenes definitely need to be edited down. But with a clip here and push there, Studies in Motion could come close to perfect.

The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival continues in Vancouver until Feb. 4, http://www.pushfestival.ca

JANUARY PLAY OF THE MONTH AWARDS GO TO URINETOWN AND STUDIES IN MOTION

Vancouverplays.com congratulates the co-winners of its prestigious Play of the Month Award for January: the Firehall Arts Centre’s Urinetown, The Musical and the Electric Company/Theatre at UBC/PuSh Festival co-production of Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge. Just getting the rights for the Vancouver premiere of the clever Broadway hit musical about a society in which governments and corporations conspire to make people pay to pee was a coup for the Firehall. The witty book and delightful score were given full value in Donna Spencer’s production, one of the biggest and best ever seen at that theatre. Kevin Kerr’s new play, Studies in Motion, an imaginative dramatic biography of the 19th century experimental photographer, was the most spectacular entry in this year’s excellent PuSh Festival. Director Kim Collier gave the work the Electrics’patented visual and physical dynamism, combining Crystal Pite’s precise choreography—much of it with actors in full nudity—with a technically brilliant visual design from UBC’s Robert Gardiner. The fine cast, combining professionals and UBC students, ensured that the human story didn’t get lost amid the spectacle. The script still needs some trimming and the connection between the two parts of Muybridge’s life could be tightened, but even in its first incarnation Studies in Motion stood out among the month’s many substantial offerings.

The Firehall and Electric Company Theatre will share the $100 prize that goes along with the Award. Congratulations to everyone involved in these excellent endeavours.

http://www.vancourier.com/issues06/014106/entertainment/014106en2.html

Photo Caption: Kevin Kerr's Studies in Motion is a feast for the senses, mixing science, photography, dance and... plenty of skin.

HEADLINE: A duo of dazzling works

Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge
Reviewed by Jo Ledingham

At Frederic Wood Theatre until Jan. 29, 2006

Tickets: 604-822-2678

Written by Governor General's Award winner Kevin Kerr, Studies in Motion does what the infinitely inventive Electric Company Theatre (Kerr, Kim Collier, David Hudgins and Jonathon Young) does so well. It takes a subject from the world of science and breathes theatrical life into it with music, movement, imagery and text.

In this world premiere (co-produced by Electric Company Theatre, Theatre at UBC and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival), the focus is on Eadweard Muybridge (pronounced Edward Moybridge), a self-described 19th-century "artist photographer" who became obsessed with freeze-frame photography. It's an interesting story of love, betrayal, murder and abandonment, but Muybridge himself, played by Andrew Wheeler sporting a snowy beard, is not a particularly charismatic character. He's cranky, fixated and largely insensitive to everyone around him: his assistants Blanche (sweetly, shyly played by Juno Ruddell) and conscientious Henry Bell (Kyle Rideout); Susan-almost always nude and proud of it (Dawn Petten); Flora Muybridge (Lara Gilchrist, wearing another stunning gown by Mara Gottler); and a host of other characters portrayed by brave and funny Allan Morgan and Erin Wells. And, of course, Muybridge is downright murderous when it comes to womanizer/villain Henry Larkyns (Jonathon Young).

It's a star-studded show, but the real stars of this show are scenographer Robert Gardiner and the superlative team of choreographer Crystal Pite and composer/sound designer Patrick Pennefather. This trio, working in stunning synchronicity, provides such stimulation that when we grow weary of Muybridge, we are still kept in a state of sensory excitement; together they make Studies in Motion a spectacle of sight and sound. Scrims come and go, dancers (dressed or undressed) walk and leap across the stage, music-often metronomic or anarchic-underscores the story. Under Kim Collier's direction, production values don't get higher than this. Feast your eyes. -JL

The Perfectionist
At the Waterfront until Jan. 29 Tickets: 604-257-0366

Reviewed by Jo Ledingham

Dive right into boca del lupo-mouth of the wolf; it won't hurt a bit and it just might charm the pants off you. There's an over-used word-charm-that often indicates a lack of edge or intellectual vigour. If anything, the young and restless boca del lupo company has either baffled audiences with its deep, psychological ruminations (Bewildered) or charmed us with whimsy (Vasily the Luckless, Last Stand). In The Perfectionist, they find a perfect marriage.

Not that Brent (Jay Dodge) and Mary (Sherry J. Yoon) have a perfect relationship. Far from it: he's a clean freak, she's a slob. He goes out, she's agoraphobic. "It's hard to motivate yourself when you know where you're headed. Where we're all headed," says Mary disconsolately.

Creators Yoon, Dodge and Jill A. Samuels team up with extraordinary composer and musician Joelysa Pankanea, onstage with her marimba and other percussive instruments, and Steve Charles on electric banjo. The "plinkety-plink" music (for want of a better description) could not be more apt for a fusion of live action and shadow play interacting with animation by Jay White. Imagine a projected black and white cartoon of a bus screaming across the stage and knocking over a shadow puppet that's clearly Mary in silhouette. You really have to see this show to believe it.

Boca always leaves me dazzled by images and The Perfectionist abounds in them: Mary and Brent flying or tangled in wires like a human cat's cradle or paddling a little bed/boat across lighting designer John Webber's glorious apricot-coloured sky. A dysfunctional, yet loving relationship has never been so creatively-or charmingly (in the very finest sense of the word) explored.

Don't miss out on what is almost an embarrassment of riches continuing at the PuSh Festival: Studies in Motion, The Perfectionist and opening this week, Sexual Practices of the Japanese and Six Miniature Tragedies. Find it all at www.pushfestival.ca. - JL

published on 01/25/2006

Headline: Motion slickness from Electric Company: World should see awe-inspiring oddity

Saturday, January 21, 2006 Page: D10 Section: Arts & Life Review by: Peter Birnie

STUDIES IN MOTION

THE HAUNTINGS OF EADWEARD *MUYBRIDGE* In the Frederic Wood Theatre at UBC, to Jan. 29 Tickets $10 to $18, call 604-822-2678

Kevin Kerr's latest play demands astonishing stagecraft. What unfolds onstage at UBC's Frederic Wood Theatre is indeed a tour de force of technical achievement.

We've come to expect the weird and wonderful from Kerr and his colleagues at the Electric Company Theatre. Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard *Muybridge* doesn't disappoint, as the Electricians join forces with Theatre at UBC and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival to offer a fascinating blend of drama, dance, fun and photographic tricks. What must have been an incredibly intense rehearsal period has resulted in a piece of theatre polished to brilliance, so complete and completely satisfying that this awe-inspiring oddity should be seen on major stages around the world.

*Muybridge* is most famous for developing photography fast enough to allow us to, as the title suggests, study motion, and Studies in Motion never stops moving as it explores ways to convey his strange story on stage. Director Kim Collier has obviously worked hand-in-glove with her cast and crew to take an already interesting tale, give it an assured complexity and craft a must-see performance experience.

There's the choreography of Crystal Pite, for example, which works in perfect synchronization with *Muybridge*'s own stop-motion photography. In one remarkable sequence a man who has been shot goes through a series of death throes mimicked in sequence, bit by bit, by other cast members. To a sonorous soundscape by Patrick Pennefather, the cast also creates other fascinating patterns of movement echoing the odd poses that *Muybridge* demanded of his subjects; no room for embarrassment on stage as everyone gets naked.

There's so much nudity, in fact, that it bears (bares?) remembering that much of *Muybridge*'s work was done with his human subjects sans clothing, so this ocean of bare bums is far from gratuitous. Between the birthday suits are all the many beautiful costumes by Mara Gottler, who rings true with her mix of Victorian reticence and the gaucheries of Barbary Coast-era San Francisco.

Buried within *Muybridge*'s white whiskers, Andrew Wheeler commands the stage in a forceful performance filled with the arrogance expected of a self-centred genius.

The play jumps back and forth in time without *Muybridge* ever leaving old age; Kerr's clear script, Collier's clever direction and Wheeler's wild-man sense of assurance keep confusion to a minimum.

Lara Gilchrist is appropriately petulant as *Muybridge*'s wandering wife and Jonathon Young plays her oily suitor with suitable unctuousness as their wicked tryst weaves in and out of the old man's fevered memories.

Allan Morgan and Dawn Petten offer both broad comedy and pathos, he as railway tycoon Leland Stanford and a blacksmith in a diaper (see it to believe it), she as a cheeky subject for the cameras. Juno Ruddell is especially appealing as the naif hired to help in the photo process; her character's dog is portrayed by a playful lighting effect.

That's one tiny part of the extraordinary machine of effects created by scenographer Robert Gardiner.

Because he has done so much to realize the Electric Company's need for innovation, Studies in Motion becomes much more than the sum of the many parts assembled by Gardiner, all of them rooted in a grid of lines and lighting cleverly reflecting *Muybridge*'s techniques.

Theatre should always strive to be much more than just stand-and-deliver speechifying.

With his latest mix of the sublime, the surreal and the simply silly, Kevin Kerr proves that his Governor-General's prize for Unity (1918) was no mere fluke. Once again, audiences are Electrified by the innovations to be found on Vancouver's stages.