With nothing more than four chairs, two tables and a video screen backdrop displaying soft, wave-like lighting, the four members of the New York-based performance troupe Universes (Steven Sapp, Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Gamal Chasten, William Ruiz) aimed to transport their audience to the despair of post-Katrina New Orleans. The group succeeded for the most part until, as performers and poets sometimes do, the members couldn’t resist using the battered city as a metaphor for the state of America as a whole, muddying their originally powerful message with a slew of only vaguely related political topics.
The performance, which took place 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 1 at the University of Iowa Theatre Building’s Mabie Theater, started off strong, with the group introducing its audience to an intriguing combination of song, recited verse, clapping and stomping percussion, and short scenes set in New Orleans. Ameriville began with furniture overturned and strewn about the stage, and as the members entered to a song that seemed to take inspiration from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” they picked up and organized the furniture, suggesting a rebuilding would take place over the next 90 minutes.
The members of Universes, who have been performing as a group since 1996, are experienced, savvy performers and they wisely made use of the entire stage through various percussive movements. They even added a literal second level to the performance by occasionally climbing atop the tables and chairs, though it was clear that dance was not the group’s strong suit as they seemed rather tentative and overtly aware of their footing whenever they were in an elevated position.
Though Ameriville opened among the wrecked city of New Orleans, even today still recovering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as the title suggests the show soon expanded to address national issues of gun control, gay marriage and militaristic actions abroad. Instead of driving the performance to new poetic heights, however, these topics derailed what had been a strong, focused show.
Though the struggles of New Orleans residents are in some ways the struggles of Americans as a whole, many of the parallels drawn to larger issues were tenuous at best. A parody of a commercial for firearms, though entertaining, felt out of place among the more personal monologues and scenes dealing with issues specific to the city itself, such as locating a lost loved one amid the chaotic aftermath of the hurricane or hearing about hope for the future from grade school-age residents.
The combination of singing and spoken word was effective in seamlessly separating the wide range of scenes covered by the performers, though it was clear that their individual talents varied. Mildred Ruiz-Sapp took the brunt of the workload during the sung portions, and for good reason. Her vocal talents outpaced her fellow performers by a large margin, but when she took her turn as an actor she was less moving than the others. Among the acted sections of the show, Steven Sapp was the clear force, particularly during a monologue in the voice of a New Orleans resident who was homeless even before the hurricane hit.
It was during moments like Sapp’s homeless monologue that the show was at its strongest: firmly rooted in New Orleans, struggling with powerful issues and challenging the audience to deal with the aspects of Hurricane Katrina they most wanted to brush aside. When the performance turned from the local to the national it became diluted by less directly relevant issues and the audience was left adrift in metaphor, grasping for something more tangible.
-- by Brian Dau
