Theater: Small Mouth Sounds: let's go Zen camping, muted
Modern comedy has a certain sameness. It's speech-reliant, a bit cynical, often too smug, and uniformly criticizes someone or something. Sometimes its actually funny. Small Mouth Sounds, a fine new play by Bess Wohl, directed by Rachel Chavkin, and produced by NYC's Ars Nova, revives an older tradition of physical comedy. Just how funny can you be when silent? The play puts five diverse campers in the woods at a Zen retreat, committed to silence for two days, while regaled from on high (off stage) by a wonderfully neurotic and often testy master/facilitator/counselor/cult leader to find their inner chi, or something. Much hilarity ensues, some predictable (cellphones, skinny dipping, bears), and some not. The uniformly fine casts revived the old vaudeville and film traditions of wordless comedy by such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton (see the hilarious The Playhouse, especially the first 5 minutes, where he surrealistically plays all the roles, including musicians, actors, and audience).
Small Mouth Sounds brings this tradition a modern spin that gently pokes fun at all the silliness associated with self help movements and pseudo-religious retreats. There are a few serious themes mixed in, but these served as a nice counterpoint to the comedy, and did not get heavy handed. Everyone had a great sense of comic timing, and the wordlessness did not get tiresome over 100 breakless minutes, a testament to both performers and director. You had to use your eyes, not your ears, to figure out the characters' nuances. In fact, I noticed that without words to focus on, my other senses became more attuned, rather like what happens in a dark cave where you cannot see, and your hearing and smell become more acute. So I watched for every physical nuance, and was hyperaware of the other audience members' reactions.
The play had a couple of pacing down-spots, and a wholly unnecessary spoken expiation/monologue by one camper half way through that was not nearly as amusing or revealing as the surrounding wordless comedy; I wish the playwright had followed her instinct to have the talking come from only the invisible flawed Zen-master (e.g. after regaling the campers reach their inner selves by leaving their cellphones off, he takes a call mid-mantra). But overall, it was a fast paced, funny, and very creative effort by a talented writer and cast.
Small Mouth Sounds brings this tradition a modern spin that gently pokes fun at all the silliness associated with self help movements and pseudo-religious retreats. There are a few serious themes mixed in, but these served as a nice counterpoint to the comedy, and did not get heavy handed. Everyone had a great sense of comic timing, and the wordlessness did not get tiresome over 100 breakless minutes, a testament to both performers and director. You had to use your eyes, not your ears, to figure out the characters' nuances. In fact, I noticed that without words to focus on, my other senses became more attuned, rather like what happens in a dark cave where you cannot see, and your hearing and smell become more acute. So I watched for every physical nuance, and was hyperaware of the other audience members' reactions.
The play had a couple of pacing down-spots, and a wholly unnecessary spoken expiation/monologue by one camper half way through that was not nearly as amusing or revealing as the surrounding wordless comedy; I wish the playwright had followed her instinct to have the talking come from only the invisible flawed Zen-master (e.g. after regaling the campers reach their inner selves by leaving their cellphones off, he takes a call mid-mantra). But overall, it was a fast paced, funny, and very creative effort by a talented writer and cast.
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