Theater Review - The Toilet Operas

THEATER REVIEW The Toilet Operas
Directed by Steven Bogart
Written and developed by the ensemble
Starring Elizabeth Bauman, Yael Borensztein, Chris Friedlich, Jill Goldin, Natasha Haverty, Leah Henoch, Ben Johnson, Jack Joshi-Powell, Kate Lane, Andrew Law, Justine Ludwig, Julia Metzger-Traber, Ian Michaels, Sidharth Muralidhur, Dana Nagiel, Jesse Paulsen, John Pourshadi, Brian Robinson, Becca Savoy, Danni Scherr, Eliza Silverman, Lindsay Simon, Jessie Strauss Lexington High School Auditorium
March 18-20, 8p.m

An opera conceived through the paintings of Joan Miró, written and developed by high school students –– about toilets. What more could fellow teenagers wish for?

Actually, there was nothing scandalously scatological about “The Toilet Operas” – even disappointingly so. The first mimed minutes of the show probably had a good number of its predominantly adolescent audience trying hard to detect toilet humor. Anxious giggles were redolent of foul expectations. As the performance steamrolled onwards it became clearer that the actors’ intension was to flush down preconceived notions of toilets as having to do with embarrassingly private rituals of embalming one’s by-products. Instead, uninhibited in their enthusiasm for physical theater and geared in garish Miró-inspired get-ups from head to toe, the actors sought to interpret toilets as a metaphor for life’s creative and chaotic processes – the toilet hence became a public spectacle of shared vulnerability when humans create something. In fact, anything.

The opera was not entirely devoid of fecal references. At one point during its desultory progression, a motley assemblage of actors discusses “the gates being opened.” Not long thereafter, a great flush ensues. The word turd was uttered with as much nonchalance as “tsunami tsunami, Mahatma Gandhi.” A plunger was applied to the belly of one as another by the name of Jimmy plucked his eyeballs out in sync, because he had lost all his marbles and because he wasn’t yet aware of an imminent attack of the super sized eyeballs or that his eyeballs will be returned French. Other characters exhibited acute cases of crapulence and vomited; others let out primal screams for no apparent reason. If taken apart and out of context, these individual characters would not have carried the weight of a full-fledged brainchild, but Mr. Steven Bogart, the director and drama teacher of Lexington High School, made sure that the ensemble attained a Gestalt whole.

Unexpected juxtapositions of dove and lollipop, turd and baby, pilot and toilet either made it excruciatingly loveless for the audience to watch, or else hilarious – as was the case for this reviewer. Quintessential humor came in the form of a larger-than-life chicken, saving a comparatively lackluster moment towards the rear end of the show. In retrospect, the chicken mistress’s earnestness in executing her tremendous clucks, her twisted face rife with clownish splendor, best exemplified the troupe’s knack for portraying vulnerable and unwitting characters through the invulnerable and un-unwitting act of acting. In the midst of utter chaos stood one indignant diva with a long plastic hose stuck in her mouth during the entire 40 minutes – well, almost. When she did finally manage to dislodge the hose out of her mouth, her operatic (recorded) voice soared upwards in audible tendrils. The mother-of-all metaphors for the struggle of artists to create art? If so, the Lexington High School’s optimism runs high.

The budding actors professed an astounding range of imagination and creativity, and they were consistently steadfast in their desire to realize their vision on stage. Each character – whether a saltant chicken or blunderbuss Jimmy – held their own ground with admirable confidence, and yet effortlessly melded in with the rest of the ensemble. Miró, Breton, or any of the other Surrealists in 1920’s France would have gotten high on “The Toilet Operas.” Surrealism was initially defined by Andre Breton as “psychic automatism in its pure state, by which it is intended to express, either verbally, or in writing, or in any other way, the true functioning of thought.” Surrealism meant not only a form of expression exceeding realist effects, but also one that involved a strong element of surprise. This was to be achieved through unexpected juxtapositions, of which the most fertile were not the result of conscious deliberation. The juxtapositions of unrelated objects in noted Surrealists’ work were supposed to disrupt stable relations of time and space. “The Toilet Operas, ” in other words, is a very sophisticated homage – both an epitome and farce – to Miró and his über-real friends.

It is futile to determine whether it was the bighearted experimentalism of Mr. Bogart or the sheer creative brilliance of his 23 drama students that led to such an explosion of creative theater. Mr. Bogart, in his on-line faculty profile, says that his greatest joy in teaching is developing and producing original plays with students: “There is nothing more important to me as a teacher than providing an authentic voice for students and empowering them with their own material.” “The Toilet Operas” seemed to fit the bill.

In equal measure, his students seemed ecstatic at the notion of having made it, following last year’s championship, to the finalist round of the coveted Boston Globe State Drama Festival (a.k.a. Globe Fest). The cast members were sharp and luminous during their after-show conversation, unmistakable diamonds in the rough. Eager, dedicated, and marvelously entrepreneurial for creative opportunities, they rank among sophisticated thespians, not teenage drama queens. They know exactly what they want, and I wish them victory this weekend at John Hancock Hall for their final performance at Globe Fest, and then a successful two-week trip to Edinburgh to represent America in the prestigious American High School Theatre Festival.

The opulence of John Hancock Hall aside, Lexington High School’s own magnificent auditorium attests to Lexington’s commitment to arts education. I know that professional theater groups in Boston often suffer sub-standard performing conditions due to a paucity of funding in the arts, and the success of “The Toilet Operas” encourage me deeply. It is my hope that many more toilets come to effloresce in Boston in all the unexpected manners.

Edited by Turner, Jane. 2000. From Expressionism to Post-Modernism: Styles and Movements in 20th-century Western Art. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, Scholarly and Reference Division, pp. 373-378.
http://lhs.lexingtonma.org/Dept/FineArts/faculty/bogart.html

About the author- Chikako Sassa is a freelance writer based in Boston, and simultaneously a recent and soon-to-be graduate of MIT. She is pursuing her second Masters degree from the Graduate Program in Science Writing.