Recently in Manhattan, theatre piece went up that utilizes Brecht's (in)famous "Alienation Effect", as well as a painstakingly realized personal vision, to great degrees of success. Richard Foreman's masterpiece, Maria Del Bosco - A Sound Opera (Sex & Racing Cars), playing now at the Ontological Theatre at St. Mark's Church, is a stunning revelation of the possibilities inherent in alienation, and a testament to Foreman's social consciousness and undeniable mastery of the theatrical form. Maria Del Bosco is a remarkable culmination of Richard Foreman's thirty-odd years of experimental theatre making. The players are three complacent, oh-so-bored ballerinas, and not much more. Foreman does not give you linear plot development, but rather repetitions and variations on themes and situations. These are complimented by Foreman's usual: startling, iconographic imagery.

Foreman expertly, a la Brecht, separates his audience from empathy. He creates a world that, while alien to us, is not unlike our world. It is a imagistic distillation of our world, paired down into symbols and ritualistic behavior. This is a remarkably political play, considering the way in which the post-modern avant-garde has shunned politics favor of metaphysics and blatant weirdness. In Maria Del Bosco, Foreman attacks our complacent consumer culture. While we never identify with the characters emotionally or even situationally, we know that they are us, and we are them. We are the preternaturally bored pleasure seekers we are seeing on stage. The ballerinas take in stimuli of all kinds, both positive and negative, without much difference. Everything is equally unimportant, or important for a ludicrously short time. Brief moments of disruption, even pain, are short lived, because soon something else will arrive to fill their/our consciousness. There is never any attempt to change the situation because life has always been this way, and always will be. This is a drama of complacency, and Foreman underlines this with appropriately empty, yet shiny and pretty, symbols of pleasure and material gain. These are beautifully abstract; they defy ponderous theorizing, and immediatly attach themselves to your subconscious. A giant gold trophy is lowered from the ceiling, to be pierced by one of the many phallic symbols littering the stage. Fake slices of pie are obviously coveted by the ballerinas, and simulated fellatio follows. This isn't scandalous pornography, rather an indictment of our culture's empty sensuality, our love affair with objects. In a daring move (in the present nationalistic climate), a gold airplane with a baby doll strapped to it crashes into the side of the trophy, echoing September 11th.

Forman expertly contrasts the absurd hilarity of the plaintive cry of "my pie" and trophys awarded for excellent taste in shoes with such events as the sacrifice of a lamb to the trophy, thinly veiled references to rape, many sexual encounters, and the presence of skulls... lots and lots of skulls, some of which are hammered into the ballerina's wombs. The final, and most obvious statement of Foreman's message comes when a placard is pulled onstage by one of the S & M dwarfs who serve as a stage crew during the depraved final "dance" sequence. As the ballerinas, wearing phalluses encrusted with rotting fruit, dance with a mechanical abandon to Depeche Mode played at an ear splitting volume, a huge sign bearing the warning " RESIST THE PRESENT" is flashed before the audience, before the lights cut to black.

Foreman alienates the audience by creating a dense web of images that give no choice but to pay attention. This opens the spectator up to a different kind of perception. With no time to try and "get it", one can only take in the terrifying truth. We live in a world dominated by consumerism and empty sexuality. We can no longer afford to be complacent seekers of empty pleasure. This latest chapter in the long, innovative history of the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre is a triumph of form and content, informing our intellects and our subconscious. A beautiful spectacle of humor and blinding terror, Maria Del Bosco is a call to arms. It is also incredibly entertaining. It is an attack on many of the faults that we in the arts are so willing to point out, but it also attacks the self-satisfied complacency that has always stained the main stream arts in Charlotte, and that now threatens to destroy the avant-garde.

Go see it.

Matt Cosper, January 10, 2002