On Stage: Recent

Subject Matter Created and Destroyed

by Matt Rieger

I Am in a Small Space for a Reason
I Don't Understand

by Matt Test January 23 – February 13
Part of the 21st Annual Rhinoceros Theater Festival

Matt Rieger's Subject Matter Created and Destroyed is a circular discussion on creation not as a means to an end in the form of a product, but as its own end per se, featuring formal wear, building blocks and a human bowling ball.

In Matt Test's I Am in a Small Space for a Reason I Don't Understand, four deposed dictators, from their increasingly cramped and isolated position in history, relay their historical secrets to you, the amateur historian, in the historical reenactment that you want. There will be some singing. There are people for that.

In Rieger's amuse bouche, a dilettantish woman (Kate Teichman) and a man (Test) exchange details about a story that she has been trying to write. "Is that the subject?" he asks at intervals. "No," chirps Teichman with cheeky aplomb, often accompanied by a hip bump and self-dramatizing hand gestures. As she chatters, he builds a pyramid of cardboard packing boxes that, like the story under discussion, won't survive for long. It's an elliptical but charming curtain-raiser that sets the tone for the evening with the pronouncement "All stories are lost." In these shows, it's up to the listener to re-create the shards into a meaningful whole....

I Am in a Small Space... continues the theme of dueling narratives. A bone-dry narrator (Jayita Bhattacharya) introduces us to a quartet of deposed dictators from the mysterious fiefdom of "Dunholt—no, not that Dunholt...." The aphorisms are occasionally hilarious, and given the volatile nature of the American electorate, it's easy to smile ruefully at the notion of people looking for a leader who "possesses no expectations, but some expectations." A few garage-folk musical interludes, including banjo and ukulele, add sonic texture....—Kerry Reid,
Chicago Tribune

Featuring Julian Berke, Jayita Bhattacharya, Casey Cunningham, Cat Jarboe, Troy Martin, Kate Teichman, Matt Test and Tom Vale.

The ensemble performs "The Partially Triumphant Return of Bad McGough"