?`Come Like Shadows," at the Chopin Theatre, comes on strong, very strong.

This latest presentation by the Plasticene troupe of what artistic director Dexter Bullard calls "physical theater" is an all-out combative, confrontational almost sado-masochistic affair.
It lasts only one hour. Anything more than that would probably kill its seven actors, who interact with non-stop, near-violent athleticism.
First in black rehearsal togs and then in vaguely 19th Century costumes, the actors go through their scenes of love, hate, desire and repulsion, spinning across the stage, colliding with each other and generally knocking about in furious motion.

There are a few oases of calm in the storm, including the program's opening sequence, a synchronized ballet of light by the candle-carrying actors.
The show is almost speechless, and its few words are either explosive exclamations or streams of gibberish.

The production at the Chopin Theatre, however, is far from simple. There are sound effects, original music and complex movement patterns designed by Bullard. Staged so that the audience sits on two sides of the playing area, the action takes place in strips of space defined by several scrim curtains. These curtains, opened and closed rapidly by the actors, restrict or expand the narrow performance area and create a revolving maze, through which the players race.

Robert G. Smith's light (and shadow) designs also delineate the atmosphere, sometimes in an ethereal blur and at other times in a bright arena of harsh contrast.
The highlight of the evening is a bizarre, intricately choreographed game of one-upmanship involving a pair of wooden armchairs and two opposing actors, Guy Van Swearingen and Sharon Gopfert.

Such exhibitions are certainly watchable on their own, and the actors surely are giving their all for their art; but here, as with every Plasticene show, one can't help wishing that this devoted, relentless action would find the right text for its expression.?Richard Christiansen, Tribune Chief Critic, Chicago Tribune Nov 3, 1999


?Dexter Bullard is a contrarian. While almost everyone else in Chicago has been busy coddling viewers with safer and safer shows--revivals of the classics, productions by the same old playwrights (Shepard, Albee, McNally, Shanley), and toothless new plays that are a lot like the old ones--Bullard and his physical theater company, Plasticene, have been putting together relentlessly original, aggressively nonlinear pieces. Come Like Shadows... is the latest from this four-year-old troupe, a roughly hour-long work for seven performers that defies description: it tells no story, develops no characters, and contains no long dialogues (the only monologue is blurted out in a half-incoherent babble). Bullard's actors don't dance, nor do they sing.

They do, however, move. Making theatrical entrances in full costume, they vigorously interact with one another and with simple props: scrims, batons, chairs, chains, candles. In one sequence Guy Van Swearingen and Sharon Gopfert play a very abstract territorial game with two armchairs that starts out funny, turns rather dark and oppressive, then lightens again. He drapes one leg over an arm of his chair, she drapes two legs over the arm of hers; while he stands and pretends to ignore his chair, she makes a lunge for it--and gets it. But in the meantime he's made an end run around her and taken her seat. Later in the piece, in what seems a continuation of the game, Van Swearingen grabs the arms of a chair as it's being lifted upside down into the flies and somersaults into the seat, "sitting" nonchalantly as the chair rises higher and higher. Has his character's world been turned upside down? Or does the feat demonstrate his mastery of an extraordinary situation?

Sections of Come Like Shadows... are very dancelike, in the sense that Goat Island's work is dancelike: the performers have taken on certain physical tasks and carry them out with the utmost conviction, crossing the stage in carefully choreographed if idiosyncratic patterns. In one sequence they crawl across the stage with long chains attached to their legs, and in another they cross in twosomes hitting each other with small batons. Other parts of the show feel like fragments of some forgotten classic--or several half-forgotten dramas entwined in memory. At one point the performers enter one by one in Victorian costumes, the men in coats, vests, and big scarflike cravats, the women in absurdly large, ruffly dresses--one woman is even dressed onstage, beginning with a corset. Once introduced, these characters almost create a narrative: when a stuffy-looking white man stands over an African-American woman, it might be a comment on colonialism or race relations.
The funny thing about Plasticene's work is that the longer you're able to stave off questions about what it means, the more you'll enjoy it. In a sense the whole show is a tease--but there's nothing wrong with that. The worst plays I've seen have failed precisely because the actors or director or playwright told us too much. Most of what's on television is worse, hitting us over the head with small-minded messages: be nice; don't smoke; eat right; buy, buy, buy.

Bullard and Plasticene go to the opposite extreme in Come Like Shadows..., which they created together under Bullard's direction: they put as much effort into keeping interpretation at arm's length as advertisers do into making sure you yearn for their product by the end of a 30-second spot. In that sense the piece resembles not only Goat Island's work but the strikingly visual performances Michael Kalmes Meyers used to present at MoMing Dance & Arts Center in the 80s. Eventually such works all come together, maybe near the end--as Meyers's did--or maybe weeks later, which happened to me once after a Goat Island show while I was walking down the street thinking about something else. And if the viewer never experiences the blinding satori that brings order out of chaos, at least the fragments can be savored.

Bullard comes by his avant-garde approach honestly. He is after all an MFA graduate of the School of the Art Institute's performance art program, where both Meyers and various Goat Island members have taught. But what makes Bullard's work (and by extension Plasticene's) even richer and more surprising is his familiarity with mainstream forms, partly the result of a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University, partly the result of his subsequent experiences. Name a style of theater and Bullard has done it: theater of the absurd, revenge tragedy, 18th-century French farce, head-banging 20th-century British tragicomedy. He even worked for three years directing Second City's touring shows. If you told me Bullard moonlighted as a dancer in Fosse, I'd buy it.

But in Come Like Shadows... Bullard displays his full range as a director, including sections that work as pure comedy and others at such a high emotional pitch they might have come from a tragedy. In many respects this show seems more a meditation on the mechanics of making theater and on the relationship between performer and audience than it is an exploration of power struggles. The set--a series of scrims--underscores not only the fact that we're watching something on a stage but that we're seeing only what Plasticene wants us to see. Similarly, the extreme fragmentation of the piece and the performers' close attention to the rituals of entrances and exits emphasize the artificiality and emphemerality of the art.

Bullard further elaborates on his theatrical theme by filling his ensemble with actors from very different sectors of Chicago's sprawling non-Equity scene. Van Swearingen is a founding member of A Red Orchid Theatre, a company known for its intensely naturalistic acting. Gopfert has worked with the Curious Theatre Branch, Prop, Lookingglass, and Redmoon--all companies that eschew mere realistic playmaking. Mark Comiskey too is best known for his work with Curious Theatre. This diversity enriches our experience: the ensemble is equally convincing in the piece's abstract and naturalistic sequences, performing like some handpicked elite army and displaying a confidence and commitment that draws us in even when what they're doing is obscure.

Early in the show the actors step onto a nearly black stage, separated from the audience by a series of translucent scrims, to perform a beautifully choreographed sequence with votive candles. One candle rises, the rest follow; one candle falls, and the rest follow. All the candles drop to the floor, then all rise mysteriously. It's a beautiful image that acts as a prologue of sorts, introducing the theme of theatricality and--when the candles are extinguished--the idea that everything in the theater is as insubstantial as a shadow on a wall.? Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader November 5, 1999


?The title of the Plasticene ensemble's haunting new adventure in nonverbal theater should serve as fair warning. "Come Like Shadows . . ." it declares. And indeed, as you enter the Chopin Theatre you should be prepared to leave this world and enter the darker, more passionate, more brutal sphere of "the other side" of consciousness - a place where repression lurks but primal urges invariably break free.

Think of Edgar Allan Poe meeting Edvard Munch, painter of "The Scream." Imagine Dante trading ideas with Charles Dickens to create a 19th century version of hell. Imagine Victorian melodrama, complete with erotic postcard images. But also recall Shakespeare's theater, with bear-baiting in the pit.

Then listen to the sounds of heavy chains rattling across the floor, of metal sticks clashing in an inhumane urban jungle, of mournfull cries and chimes at midnight, and the scratch of pens on paper as yearning, bedeviled souls scribble furious, unrequited love letters. Pay attention also to the light (and the shadows), as frenzied figures carry votive candles to and fro, and as one woman helps another pull the ties of her corset so tightly she cannot breathe. Watch for men carried on poles like butchered animals, and for another who suddenly appears in deer antlers. They are sacrificial victims all.

Trying to explain precisely what it is that Plasticene does is like trying to recount a strange and deeply troubling nightmare - one that has you in its thrall until you suddenly bolt upright and realize just how far away you have been, and just what a horrifying journey you have taken. As in all of the unique works of "physical theater," the company has developed over the past four years, "Come Like Shadows . . ." pulls you into its world through its sheer visceral power (the sweat and grunts and gasping for breath of the actors), as well as its teasing mix of the hallucinatory and the real. The scenario, always open to interpretation, can be terrifying one moment and bizarrely funny the next. And there is not a single predictable action anywhere along the way.

Dexter Bullard's brilliant, no-prisoners-taken direction is clearly taken as a challenge by his ensemble of seven daredevils whose physical fearlessness is rivaled only by their emotional ferocity. The performers are Guy Van Swearingen (who performs a sweat- inducing aerial duet with a chair); Sharon Gopfert (in various intriguing disguises, as well as a brief nude scene); RaShawn Fitzgerald; Kirsten Fitzgerald; Julia Fabris, Dominic Conti and Mark Comiskey. A phenomenal bunch.

With the audience seated on either side of a narrow rectangular playing space - and each group shielded from the facing group of spectators by an elaborate series of curtains - the actors seem to be on some eerie, invisible treadmill of existence.

Caught up in a raging typhoon of the spirit, each of them seems to be on a quest for some terrible, wonderful and almost entirely elusive thing. Robert G. Smith's dazzling, rhythmically thrilling lighting effects combine with the hugely inventive, cinematic score of Eric Leonardson and Bill Talsma, which is played live. And Miriam Sohn's period costumes add psychic texture to this 70-minute theatrical storm in which few words are spoken but the characters achieve an almost unbearably painful eloquence.? Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun Times November 3, 1999


?Anyone who has attended a performance by the physical-theater troupe Plasticene can attest to the mysterious and mesmerizing spell that the company weaves onstage.

It's a brave new world full of risks. A world where success is measured not in leaps and bounds but in thoughtful, inventive theater with a mind and heart of its own.

Unfortunately in the past, Plasticene's works were staged in short runs that filled up fast with the troupe's die-hard fans. But with the opening of the new work "Come Like Shadows . . .," that is about to change. The show will for run for five weeks. "So far, this is our longest run," said artistic director Dexter Bullard, whose brilliant vision has guided past productions. "We hope this show will be a breakthrough for us, a chance to expand our audience."

Plasticene's success record is enviable. At the debut of each highly anticipated new work, the company achieves what most theater troupes only hope for - critical success and sold-out shows. Each show is more daring and creative than the last.

Plasticene - the name is a British term for modeling clay - was formed in 1995 by Bullard, Michael Cates, Julia Fabris and Brian Shaw to create original works of physical theater. The company uses contact improvisation and object encounters to develop wordless actions and situations.

Previous works found their audience. "Doorslam" revolved around four performers, three doors, a light bulb, a newspaper and a birthday cake. In "Volume XII," the objects included a variety of steps and a whole bunch of encyclopedias. "Refuge" used suitcases and several rolling screens.

"Come Like Shadows . . ." features seven actors and weaves a visual story of ambition and destiny, using the ripples of curtains, points of candlelight and tones of bells.

"We explore the idea of the driving force of ambition," Bullard said. "What are the prices people pay physically and emotionally to get what they want? There is a dual nature to the show, a lot of driving and daring action coupled with really haunting supernatural or prophetic kinds of visions. It follows the patterns of dreams and nightmares rather than waking life."

Music also is an integral part of each Plasticene production. Composer, improviser and sound designer Eric Leonardson, working on an instrument of his own making, has created a unique sound for each show. He collaborated with musician and audio engineer Bill Talsma on the music for "Come Like Shadows. . . ."

The instrument Leonardson plays looks like something out of a science-fiction movie. On a stylized synthesizer-percussion table with attachments such as bolts, coil springs, old refrigerator grills and thin strips of wood, he creates marvelous sounds that are essential in setting the mood.

"There is nothing impressive about these musical gadgets," Leonardson said. "But the sounds they create are very rich and organic. A coil spring can be very haunting."

Plasticene's shows, which are choreographed to perfection, are virtually created in the rehearsal process.

"It is more sculptural than text based," Bullard said. "The actors have to keep their impulses alive. Each actor creates his own role. It requires an imagination and a real physical ability. But the difference here is that the movements are based in everyday life, what goes on all around us. These aren't movements found only in gymnastics or dance."

The actors performing nonstop onstage are also performing a sort of choreographed show offstage to keep the technical side of the show running smoothly. As the staged vision travels its course, they feed off each other offstage and behind props to set up the action and keep it flowing.

"The show becomes a very complex set of actions," Bullard said. "Something that asks more of an actor than just to walk out and say lines. Everyone has responsibilities every second."

Getting the rhythm of the show down is a complex process, said actor Mark Comiskey, a Plasticene veteran.

"It's like a maze," he said. "You place an object down, someone runs by you really fast, you step to the other side of the stage. Adjusting our own personal rhythm is part of the challenge of the show. Occasionally we do crash into each other backstage. That's when you learn never to make that misstep again."

For actor Sharon Gopfert, the "Plasticene adreneline rush" is invigorating and inspiring.

"You get absolutely swept up in it," she said. "From that point on, you wish every show could be like this." Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun-Times October 22, 1999