By Tom Scanlon
July 9 - 25th: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 7pm
JEM Arts Center in Georgetown
6012 12th Ave South ; $12
reservations: 568-4411 web site
A cast of 10 - eight women and two men - takes us through theater boot camp in this intensely-physical, minimalist production. The stage is the concrete floor of a converted warehouse, the set two wooden ladders, the props five or six sticks.
Writer-director Sheila Daniels takes a Book-It-esque approach, as characters often announce who they are, and narrate what they are doing (or have done). This artificial technique is by far the weakest element of an often-powerful meditation on women as soldiers. The concept itself might be flawed: the Jewish, Nicaraguan, South African, Russian and Vietnamese women-warriors are always heroic, never cowardly, never doubtful, never yielding to their oppressors (Nazis, apartheid-ists, Americans).
"Shock Brigade" does manage to snatch war away from the clutches of men, and make it a womanly thing.
The best moments come not when the actors are reciting what their characters have done, but when they are interacting in the present, with no artifical barriers to the acting.
This fast-moving show often interweaves and overlaps (not always effectively) stories, and Daniels imaginatively uses the barren space, with layered choreography.
The cast responds with wonderful performances, taking us to place we'd probably prefer not to be. Case in point, a scene in which fleeing rebels must crawl through sewers. You can almost smell the filth they endured.
Daniels at times is too unrestrained in her direction. Far more times than they should, characters giggle and laugh at their exploits in a girlish manner - "war is fun!," seems to be the message. This is perhaps an attempt to balance out the truly dark sections (torture, rape) of the play, but it rings false, and is no replacement for black humor, in which soldiers mock their sorry existences and - rather than laughing or giggling - merely grunt to ease their pain.
The faults of this production are glaring at times, but elsewhere melt away, as in a breath-taking "plane crash" scene that is theatric magic.
Michael Perrone, Mmatjatji Ramaphala, Tracy Repep, Sarah Rudinoff,
Lanise Shelley and Naho Shioya
