There is so much mad in choreographer Faye Driscoll
Like Jonathan Franzen’s highly praised, recently released novel Freedom, Faye Driscoll’s There is so much mad in me craftily portrays human behavior that is as unlikable as it is recognizable. Driscoll populates her mad—which premiered last April and which was reprised by Dance Theater Workshop from September 22 to 25—with nine energetic, solipsistic, violent, sex-crazed young adults. They dance, sing, play, humiliate, rape and torture each other. Driscoll’s dark vision is leavened by her cast’s absurd antics.
On September 22, Driscoll’s 70-minute work began with Nikki Zialcita running in place while Mark Helland held her wrists behind her back. His lock impeded her forward progression downstage. Seeing her bobbing in place produced laughs. Zialcita is small and zophtic and looked under Amanda K. Ringger’s acid-colored lighting a bit like a Robert Crumb cartoon drawing. As the duet evolved in silence, Helland increasingly treated Zialcita like a plaything. Zialcita didn’t object; she squealed with pleasure as he held her throat. This frolic grew, like a glacial creep, disturbing.
The deliberate progression from light to dark and back again is what has put Driscoll on the downtown dance map (The New York Times named her previous work 837 Venice Boulevard as “one of the top five dance shows” of 2008.) Indeed, Driscoll knows how to craft an emotional arc. Her work goes somewhere. Usually it goes to the most cynical place.
In mad Driscoll demonstrates how human relationships are based in and comprised of aggression, manipulation, and victimization. In her third full-length work—structured through a series of vignettes with a Disco-esque sound design care of Brandon Wolcott—Driscoll’s theatricalized examples of human ickyness are thoroughly convincing. Adaku Utah impersonates a charismatic anger-management coach whose following is cowed and then rallied by her violent outbursts. They grow frenzied with delight. They jump up and down like cult members gone nuts. The scene was so convincing I forgot where I was. Then it turned silly through a unison aerobic dance.
Later, Driscoll created her own Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse scene. There was nothing pat or overly theatrical about the scenario, which culminated with the Tony Orrico barking like a dog. When Orrico joined two lines of eight performers, jogging in lockstep formation like military trainees, Driscoll’s message was clear: This victim will become an aggressor; our species is heading toward its doom.
Despite this nihilistic embrace, Driscoll isn’t hanging up her hat or going the way of David Foster Wallace. After her cast took their bows, she announced the launch of a full-time company in her name. Perhaps her next work will concern the BP oil crisis, the Great Recession, and Lindsey Lohan’s troubles with the law. Being topical, Driscoll knows all too well, is titillating.