Filmme Fatale

This is a DAMAGE MANUAL - a performance review

What is it to be mentally healthy? Where does anxiety come from? Why is it so wrong to be angry, or sad, or to fight back? What’s your damage, anyway?

This is a DAMAGE MANUAL wrapped over a week ago and I’m still processing its affect of me. In the span of an hour, these four women shook my artistic and emotional foundation so hard that after I left the theater, I went home and cried. I know damage well - and even though I can’t say I’ve ever suffered because of my anxiety, it’s a ghost that haunts me wherever I go, always present in my periphery. What is there to do? Up until a few years ago I’d been in and out of therapy for most of my life and, for the most part, it helped. Rather, I helped myself. But did I “get better”, or am I just more self-aware? What’s the difference between the two, and what does it matter?

Let’s ask Earl.

At the top of the show, we are introduced to the so-velvety-you-could-wear-it voice of the 1950s motivational speaker, Earl Nightingale - visualized above as a skeletal hand puppet. He tells us that we are sane and want to get better, and all we need to do is listen to him. The implication here, of course, is that nervousness and anxiety are bad and it’s your fault that you feel this way.

Janna Barta dances first, stretching, heaving and limping through a dreamy instrumental of Florence And The Machine’s “Cosmic Love” on a single pointe shoe. Next comes Mindy Meyers as a 50s housewife slowly coming undone to a medley of music composed by a variety of men and their various orchestras. She is met by Atalee Judy, Anita Fillmore and Janna Barta all in white almost-haz-mat getups, who sanitize the stage to The Damage Manual’s “South Pole Fighters”. Atalee is left by herself to discover the Earl puppet and, slowly removing her mask, we see she is wearing a very familiar square black mustache. With a teary-eyed look of blissful wonder, she puts an identical mustache on the Earl puppet. Cue Klaus Nomi’s “Cold Song” as Atalee succumbs to a fascist id with awful sneezing fits, explained in the video projection as an indication of stress and psychoses: that some people harbor homophobes, germaphobes, and monsters inside of them that even they don’t know about. Rolling under a comforter, Atalee forces herself to sleep to shake this sudden onset of sickness. Then comes the dream sequence.

In a scene that reminded me very much of one of the dream sequences in The Cell (this is a compliment), Anita, Janna and Mindy appear in white bather’s suits and eerily - and I mean real spooky-like - crawl their way over to Atalee’s comforter. She busts out clad in a sparkly jacket and fedora and sings into a mic lowered from the ceiling - “Only You” by The Platters, a love note to delusion.

But wait. No. This isn’t right. “I know who I am,” Atalee declares, stripping off the jacket and hat and tell-tale mustache still attached to her face. “That…” - she points to her discarded garments - “that isn’t me. I don’t know what that is.”
“Hello, this is Earl Nightingale-“
Atalee is confronted once again with the idea that she’s being unreasonable and needs Earl’s help. Atalee says she needs a person. Anita enters, and counsels an extremely agitated Atalee to an instrumental mix of The Damage Manual’s “Limited Edition”. On two small white board worn around each of their necks, they express confusion and frustration. And then, coming to some kind of understanding, they split the word “Intermission” between them.

A quick moment to catch my breath and do a shot at Theater Wit’s bar and I’m back in my seat for the brief show closer.

Earl tells us to relax. That all we need to do is relax and we can solve all our problems. We’re too uptight; we’re too stubborn. Just relax - it’s that easy. The foursome confusedly convulse to a remix of “Anthrax” by Gang Of Four as Earl narrates to them over and over the mantra of relaxation. The group raises up Anita, who is eased out of her jumpsuit and slowly floats herself, step by cautious and painful step, across the stage and into a bright light at the far corridor.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a therapy session that affected me as much as This Is A DAMAGE MANUAL, and I wonder if that is deliberate. Perhaps the message is that it isn’t therapy - specifically, the prescriptive kind - we need, but eachother. Perhaps rebirth comes when we submit to ourselves.

Like I said before, I cried the rest of the night after seeing this. I understand now that that “alone” feeling I often experience is a shared one, and particularly acute among women. Contrary to what the Earl Nightingales of the world tell us, though, to fight back against these pressures and pigeonholes thrust upon is nothing but an act of pure sanity. To fight back is self-expression, yes, but it is also self-preservation. That Atalee created this show around these feelings proves she truly lives by her mantra: “Art Sanctifies.”

In terms of the dancing technique itself, outside of the greater narrative, I’d expect absolutely nothing less from an experimental dancemaster such as Atalee. Her athletic and intense choreography is exciting to watch and it is clear to see that all four of these women - Atalee, Mindy, Janna and Anita - are extremely dedicated and innovative movement artists.

As I’m a huge supporter of independent showcases, I fully recommend each and every one of you to get out and experience local theater, film, art, performances, music, comedy, and everything in between. Shows like This Is A DAMAGE MANUAL need to be experienced and written about, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to do so.

If you’re interested in learning more about this show and others produced by Atalee, click below:

• breakbone.com / Atalee’s dance company site
• BONEdanse on FaceBook

And check out this awesome trailer shot and edited by Atalee’s creative partner/significant other and my friend Carl.

Photos above taken by Chrystyne (www.chrystyne.com).

Valhalla Rising addendum/Bronson

It’s an obvious point once you see the film, but the character of One Eye is so powerful because his entire dialog and range of emotion is all expressed through his solitary eye. He doesn’t make a single noise the entire film, nor does his face ever change. Mads Mikkelsen deserves so much recognition for this role - I hope to see more of him in import indies, and I’m definitely gonna check out his previous pictures.

Actually, director Nicolas Winding Refn seems to be very consistent in choosing his leads. We’re now watching Bronson, which stars the magnificent Tom Hardy. Another recommended film, especially if you happened to fall in love with Hardy’s character Eames in Inception (or if you simply know what’s good, because this man is not only a great actor, he’s awfully handsome). 

All in all, an enjoyable day.

Thoughts so far on Valhalla Rising

The entire Medieval era seems like one big ill-conceived plan. Also, nightmarishly damp.

The trailer is pretty misleading, though. This movie is so quiet and uncomfortable with very hushed, minimal dialog and very little action. The soundtrack is beautiful, ominous and drone-y pretty much wall-to-wall. I’m pretty enamored; I don’t even know how they got some of these gorgeous shots - it’s like they’re shooting underwater half of the time because of the thickness of the fog. Desolate and depressing and surreal. So far, definitely recommended.

I am not impressed, however, with this orangeish CGI bloodspray. That’s the only thing that takes me out of the story.