The Immortal
With the Indianapolis Museum of Art
With the Indianapolis Museum of Art
Most Recent Productions
Click on the poster for pictures and more information about the production.
Click on the poster for pictures and more information about the production.
Antigone
Shutting me up, doesn't make you right...
September 2009 - 4 of 5 STARS
"With chest-beating monologues and excessive exposition, Greek tragedy can play like ancient soap opera. Who screwed whom? Who was loyal? Who will go down in flames? By the grace of Zeus, however, brilliant Georgeanna Smith blends these elements in the ethereally beautiful IMA gardens to put mortal woes in perspective and put us into the story. Like the citizens of Thebes sniffing out gossip, audience members follow the players up and down shaded stone paths. We witness two brothers battle to the death in a fountain and then chase after their mourning, arguing sisters. Only Antigone will risk her life to bury her disgraced brother Polynieces, against the King’s commandment. Once we Thebans are settled on the lawn behind the majestic Lilly House, King Creon and the unrelenting Antigone, then Creon and his son (who loves Antigone), and finally Creon and his wife (who loves their son) can cajole, scream and wail to their hearts’ content. The towering trees and dusky blue skies absorb their frantic echoes, while we consider the ultimate question. Is it better to die for the dead or live alone for power? Using nature, architecture, and earnest performances (including two ghostly interlopers), Smith so masterfully frames the problem that it’s difficult to imagine any other option."
- Josefa Beyer
"With chest-beating monologues and excessive exposition, Greek tragedy can play like ancient soap opera. Who screwed whom? Who was loyal? Who will go down in flames? By the grace of Zeus, however, brilliant Georgeanna Smith blends these elements in the ethereally beautiful IMA gardens to put mortal woes in perspective and put us into the story. Like the citizens of Thebes sniffing out gossip, audience members follow the players up and down shaded stone paths. We witness two brothers battle to the death in a fountain and then chase after their mourning, arguing sisters. Only Antigone will risk her life to bury her disgraced brother Polynieces, against the King’s commandment. Once we Thebans are settled on the lawn behind the majestic Lilly House, King Creon and the unrelenting Antigone, then Creon and his son (who loves Antigone), and finally Creon and his wife (who loves their son) can cajole, scream and wail to their hearts’ content. The towering trees and dusky blue skies absorb their frantic echoes, while we consider the ultimate question. Is it better to die for the dead or live alone for power? Using nature, architecture, and earnest performances (including two ghostly interlopers), Smith so masterfully frames the problem that it’s difficult to imagine any other option."
- Josefa Beyer
January 2009 - 3 of 5 STARS
No Exit reconstructs another classic (Julius Caesar, A Doll's House) through a movement-infused performance that turns out something like Brave New World: The Musical. No one sings, but various pop recordings accompany group dance numbers. No Exit is at their best portraying the pounding energy of a society devoted to "youthful indulgences." Less effective are maudlin tunes and dances that represent the unhappy few, in Aldous Huxley's sterile future world, who long for truth, beauty and intimacy. As writer, director and choreographer, Alyson Mull proves herself a master of lively exposition in the play's opening. An "ovarium" supervisor explains how mothering has been replaced by factory breeding, as the cast performs mild acrobatics to show how some fetuses are robbed of oxygen to make them happily dumb menial workers, and others are turned about "in utero" to accustom them to working upside down as adults. By the end of the play, however, Brave New World meanders into dull lecture as the chief Controller defends the merits of stability and happiness to a woebegone "savage," who was raised outside this order-driven society. The savage and most of the story's other misfits make flat and plodding heroes. This adaptation might work better without them, inviting us to see how much more we are like Huxley's worker bees than his thinkers.
- Josefa Beyer
No Exit reconstructs another classic (Julius Caesar, A Doll's House) through a movement-infused performance that turns out something like Brave New World: The Musical. No one sings, but various pop recordings accompany group dance numbers. No Exit is at their best portraying the pounding energy of a society devoted to "youthful indulgences." Less effective are maudlin tunes and dances that represent the unhappy few, in Aldous Huxley's sterile future world, who long for truth, beauty and intimacy. As writer, director and choreographer, Alyson Mull proves herself a master of lively exposition in the play's opening. An "ovarium" supervisor explains how mothering has been replaced by factory breeding, as the cast performs mild acrobatics to show how some fetuses are robbed of oxygen to make them happily dumb menial workers, and others are turned about "in utero" to accustom them to working upside down as adults. By the end of the play, however, Brave New World meanders into dull lecture as the chief Controller defends the merits of stability and happiness to a woebegone "savage," who was raised outside this order-driven society. The savage and most of the story's other misfits make flat and plodding heroes. This adaptation might work better without them, inviting us to see how much more we are like Huxley's worker bees than his thinkers.
- Josefa Beyer
September 2009 - 3 of 5 STARS
In this one-hour deconstruction of Shakespearean tragedy, directors Alyson Mull and Michael Bachman focus on the words leaders use to sway the masses. Wordsmith Cassius would fit right in on a modern American election campaign, because he knows how to get people moving: Shame them, praise them, scare them or cry, simply, “For country!” Words will get people to the voting booth or, in Brutus’ case, to pick up a dagger. I’m getting to know and like NoExit for its use of found stages and movement-infused performances. The historic Morris-Butler House was perfect for their take on A Doll’s House last spring. Here, Crown Hill Cemetery is sadly appropriate for the Roman blood bath — as well as an exquisite place to end a September Sunday. A retaining wall memorial makes a fine coliseum in miniature. In Caesar, most of the cast are still developing technique, but they succeed, in part, because their bodies are so engagingly framed by the architecture of the trees. Along with rural beauty, Marc Szewczyk’s fine oratory as Cassius is reason enough to see this short Caesar.
- Josefa Beyer
In this one-hour deconstruction of Shakespearean tragedy, directors Alyson Mull and Michael Bachman focus on the words leaders use to sway the masses. Wordsmith Cassius would fit right in on a modern American election campaign, because he knows how to get people moving: Shame them, praise them, scare them or cry, simply, “For country!” Words will get people to the voting booth or, in Brutus’ case, to pick up a dagger. I’m getting to know and like NoExit for its use of found stages and movement-infused performances. The historic Morris-Butler House was perfect for their take on A Doll’s House last spring. Here, Crown Hill Cemetery is sadly appropriate for the Roman blood bath — as well as an exquisite place to end a September Sunday. A retaining wall memorial makes a fine coliseum in miniature. In Caesar, most of the cast are still developing technique, but they succeed, in part, because their bodies are so engagingly framed by the architecture of the trees. Along with rural beauty, Marc Szewczyk’s fine oratory as Cassius is reason enough to see this short Caesar.
- Josefa Beyer
April 2009 - 3.5 of 5 STAR
NoExit found the perfect venue for their stylized adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In the small parlor of the Morris-Butler House, the audience gets intimate with a couple that knows no real intimacy. We have wonderful close-ups of Roger Ortman as Torvald, so expressive in his dotage and severe in his disgust, and Georgeanna Smith as Nora, whose face is china doll perfection as she feeds her husband adulation. With the on/off of a spotlight, directors Nicole Gatzimos (who also adapted the play) and Nina Ryan interrupt the dialogue with dance poses and repeated phrases to emphasize how much of this relationship is mere ritual. Although there were moments when I longed for Ibsen’s excised dialogue, Eleanora succeeds in heightening our sense of the relationship, especially as there are no other major characters. Three servants act as chorus, echoing the couple’s words and quite literally supporting them. The presence of others in their lives is hinted at with the buzzing of the doorbell and offstage slamming of doors. Eleanora is a small package with surprisingly memorable contents.
- Josefa Beyer
NoExit found the perfect venue for their stylized adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In the small parlor of the Morris-Butler House, the audience gets intimate with a couple that knows no real intimacy. We have wonderful close-ups of Roger Ortman as Torvald, so expressive in his dotage and severe in his disgust, and Georgeanna Smith as Nora, whose face is china doll perfection as she feeds her husband adulation. With the on/off of a spotlight, directors Nicole Gatzimos (who also adapted the play) and Nina Ryan interrupt the dialogue with dance poses and repeated phrases to emphasize how much of this relationship is mere ritual. Although there were moments when I longed for Ibsen’s excised dialogue, Eleanora succeeds in heightening our sense of the relationship, especially as there are no other major characters. Three servants act as chorus, echoing the couple’s words and quite literally supporting them. The presence of others in their lives is hinted at with the buzzing of the doorbell and offstage slamming of doors. Eleanora is a small package with surprisingly memorable contents.
- Josefa Beyer
September 2009
The first collaboration between NoExit Performance, Inc. and Indianapolis-based Novox Theater Group, diaspora was adapted by Director Michael Hosp from the beat poetry of Saul Williams. In this amazingly rhythmic piece, Michael Hosp and solo actor Jonah Winston, paint the picture of a homeless man who may know more than his clothes and surroundings lead on. In the beginning, star Jonah Winston, may seem to be no more than crazy panhandler, but as the piece progresses, we begin to understand the great wisdom than is buried beneath the layers of dirty clothes that sit upon this unnamed man's shoulders. I never understood the gravity and greatness of this piece until I approached by another guy asking for money, and found myself truly questioning, "What brought him here and who am I?" Truly a remarkable piece by such young and innovative artists.
- Mary Jacobson
The first collaboration between NoExit Performance, Inc. and Indianapolis-based Novox Theater Group, diaspora was adapted by Director Michael Hosp from the beat poetry of Saul Williams. In this amazingly rhythmic piece, Michael Hosp and solo actor Jonah Winston, paint the picture of a homeless man who may know more than his clothes and surroundings lead on. In the beginning, star Jonah Winston, may seem to be no more than crazy panhandler, but as the piece progresses, we begin to understand the great wisdom than is buried beneath the layers of dirty clothes that sit upon this unnamed man's shoulders. I never understood the gravity and greatness of this piece until I approached by another guy asking for money, and found myself truly questioning, "What brought him here and who am I?" Truly a remarkable piece by such young and innovative artists.
- Mary Jacobson
July 2009
The Immortal was is truly a match made in heaven between two organizations of David and Goliath standards. The Goliath being Indianapolis Museum of Art which has recently reached out to many Daivd-like organizations in an effort to bring performance art into their arena, and never have they found an organization like NoExit. The piece, directed by Georgeanna Smith and Caroline Stine, references the traveling Egypt exhibit now open at the IMA. Smith and Stine bring Egypt and its rich heritage to the IMA public before a showing of The Mummy which only complemented the night. Tonight, I truly experienced the festival, the life, the death, and indeed the immortality of a nation and its people.
- John Evans
The Immortal was is truly a match made in heaven between two organizations of David and Goliath standards. The Goliath being Indianapolis Museum of Art which has recently reached out to many Daivd-like organizations in an effort to bring performance art into their arena, and never have they found an organization like NoExit. The piece, directed by Georgeanna Smith and Caroline Stine, references the traveling Egypt exhibit now open at the IMA. Smith and Stine bring Egypt and its rich heritage to the IMA public before a showing of The Mummy which only complemented the night. Tonight, I truly experienced the festival, the life, the death, and indeed the immortality of a nation and its people.
- John Evans