In the weeks leading up to tonight's opening of Production Workshop's new play, "The Music of Erich Zann in the Penal Colony," warnings outside the performance space, reading "Caution," "Heavy Machinery" and "Keep Out," have kept the show a fiercely guarded secret. The only indication of what the play's audience is in for comes from a sign tracking the number of "Days Without Vomit" the production has enjoyed since Jan. 31. By Wednesday night, the count had reached six.
"The rehearsals were so intense that on two separate days, two separate members of the cast vomited during the climax of the play," said David Harrington '08.5, director of "Music," which runs through Monday at the PW.
Just before the start of Wednesday night's dress rehearsal, Harrington turned to the sign and replaced the six with a seven.
Adapted by Harrington and Tamara Del Rosso '08 from texts by H.P. Lovecraft and Franz Kafka, "Music" filters theater, performance art, film and music through a horror movie sensibility, producing a kind of panoramic experience for its audience.
"It's a total assault on as many senses as possible," Harrington said. "Keep your eyes open. Keep your ears open."
As viewers arrive, they are herded into a room the production team calls the "Holding Cell," where they wait, bathed in red light. Once the entire audience has arrived, they are ushered through an unexpected passage into the performance space, which has been transformed almost beyond recognition, by a monumental, kinetic and uncommonly impressive set.
To reveal any more than that would diminish the sense of discovery that audience members will feel as they navigate Harrington's world. Suffice it to say that, in the course of its 45 minutes, "Music" touches on pretty much everything that has ever been included on a warning sign in a theater lobby. Though a few of its 'horror movie' moments fall flat, most succeed in unexpected ways.
The play's eight resilient actors give strongly committed performances. Jack Sullivan '09, playing the Officer, invigorates his mostly expository role with a creepy, nervous menace. Colette Garrigues '11, as the reclusive musician Erich Zann, uses a kabuki-like control over her body to unsettling effect.
Though "Music" certainly rewards a familiarity with Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" and Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann," most audience members will feel a certain kinship with the Explorer, played by Tara Schuster '08, who is repeatedly confronted with a text in a language she cannot read.
"Music," too, speaks its own peculiar language: Whereas many plays aim for the head or the heart, "Music" sets its sights squarely on the gut and, more often than not, it hits the mark.
